Switzerland Today
Hello from Bern,
Marius Bear hasn't quite reached Céline Dion fame but he still has a good chance of winning the Eurovision contest thanks to his performance last night in the semi-finals. Bear, whose off-stage name is Marius Hügli, will be singing in the finals on Saturday.
The last time Switzerland won the contest was in 1988 when Céline Dion sang “Ne partez pas sans moi”. One big difference of course is that Marius Hügli is actually Swiss (Dion is Canadian). Not only was he born in Switzerland’s smallest canton, but his singing talents were “discovered” while he was doing his military service according to the Tages-Anzeiger.
In the News: The EU wants clear answers from Switzerland; more humanitarian aid for Syria; and parliament wrestles with Nazi-looted art.
- The EU says it’s done with all the waffling from Switzerland. Public broadcaster SRF reported today that Brussels now wants concrete answers in written form to the many open questions that need to be resolved to advance any bilateral agreements. This comes after talks between key negotiators at the end of April failed to resolve the political impasse.
- Switzerland announced it will contribute another CHF60 million ($60.5 million) in humanitarian aid to Syria and its neighbouring countries in the Middle East. The announcement was made at an international donor conference in Brussels on Tuesday as the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate. The foreign ministry said Switzerland has provided around CHF590 million since 2011 to mitigate the impact of the conflict in Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq – making it Switzerland’s biggest-ever humanitarian undertaking.
- The Swiss House of Representatives voted in favour of creating an independent commission to deal with Nazi-looted art. If approved by the second chamber, there will also be no longer a distinction between stolen art and art that people were forced to sell in order to flee persecution. If the latter is included, many more artworks would need to be returned to their original owners. The motion was prompted by the controversy surrounding the Emil Bührle collection at the Kunsthaus Zurich.
Want to go to the WEF in Davos this year? Be prepared to pay $18,000
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is back: the Alpine get-together is starting on May 22. But after it postponed its annual gathering in Davos several times due to the pandemic, it’s not surprising that many people have been putting off travel plans to the resort until the last minute. But this also comes at a priceExternal link; and according to a report in 20 Minuten, that price is upwards of CHF18,000 ($18,000) a night.
I did some of my own digging and found that such an apartment, which is listed on AirBnB as a WEF Worldclass ChaletExternal link for six people, would cost only half as much on a random day in June. It includes free parking and an elevator though. This sounds like a steal compared to another offer for a one-person studio without a bathroom at CHF 10,383 per night during WEF, reported 20 Minuten.
It’s not just private owners that are charging high prices. The Swiss paper found that a standard triple room in the Hotel Edelweiss during the week of WEF costs CHF17,197 on the booking platform Booking.com. This is about CHF4,000 per night. A few weeks later, the same room costs between CHF750- 980 for four nights. I tried to check out the rate myself and three booking sites said the price was unavailable and suggested contacting the hotel directly.
WEF Founder and Chairman Klaus Schwab already warned Davos back in 2019 that if prices continue to rise, WEF would consider other locations to hold their annual meeting. But given Davos residents have missed out on the extra WEF income the last two years, it isn’t surprising that homeowners in the region are trying to squeeze the elites who jet into Davos for a few days.
Putting an end to the “tampon tax” is symbolic but symbols matter
Some have called it a “pink tax”, others a “tampon tax”. Whatever you call it, more parliamentarians agree that taxing feminine hygiene products at a higher rate than things like cat litter and caviar is just plain discriminatory.
Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted in favour of lowering the VAT on such products from 7.7% to 2.5%. Unlike medication, cat litter, flowers and food, women’s sanitary supplies haven’t qualified for the discounted rate of 2.5% put into place in 2018. Campaigners have been making their case for years. Kenya did away with a “tampon tax” in 2004; India did so in 2018. See here our back story from 2019.
Lowering the VAT is estimated to save women who use tampons and sanitary pads around CHF2.30 a year. Why change the law when the savings are so small? In a commentary in Tages-Anzeiger today, the journalist, who is male, argues that the decision by parliament is symbolicExternal link and symbols matter.
“It is about taking the legitimate concerns of women seriously. Half of the population depends on these products for a long period of their lives. It is therefore incomprehensible to charge the same tax rate to tampons as, for example, cars,” writes journalist Philipp Felber-Eisele.
While this seems like a non-issue in many respects, there were still 70 parliamentarians who voted against it. Opponents argued that this amounted to discrimination against men. Others worried this could be a slippery slope, with more products asking to get the discount rate.
In the end, the House may have backed an end to the tampon tax but they voted against lowering the VAT for diapers for babies.
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