Switzerland Today

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The contrast couldn’t have been more striking today in Bern. While besuited lawmakers calmly made their way to the federal parliament building for the start of the busy three-week summer session, rival Bandidos and Hells Angels gang members in sunglasses and leather waistcoats, separated by nervous police officers, hurled insults and stones at each other outside a court in the city centre.

Former economics minister Johann Schneider-Ammann signed the free trade deal with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing in 2013. It came into force in July 2014, marking China’s first such pact with a continental European nation. Keystone / How Hwee Young

In the news: missing Indonesian, future women’s strike, hottest May and crowdfunding.

• Efforts by Switzerland to refresh its 2013 free trade agreement with China have stalled as Bern takes a more critical view of Beijing’s human rights record, Swiss newspapers have reportedExternal link.
• Swiss police continue their search for the son of an Indonesian island governor, who went missing last week while swimming in the River Aare, near to Bern.
• There has been “almost no progress” on women’s issues since the women’s strike of 2019, campaigners said today at an action in Bern ahead of a national strike on June 14. Wage discrimination remains “shocking”, female activists said. 
• Raising money via crowdfunding has become much more popular in Switzerland. These niche fundraising initiatives raised almost CHF800 million last year (up 31% on the previous year), according to a study.
• Britain will offerExternal link work visas to graduates from the world’s best universities in an expansion of its post-Brexit immigration system that is designed to attract the “best and brightest” workers. Graduates with a Bachelors or Masters degree from the top 50 universities abroad can apply for a two-year work visa and will be allowed to bring family members with them. Those who receive doctorates can apply for a three-year visa. The Swiss federal technology institutes in Lausanne (EPFL) and Zurich (ETH Zurich) are on the list.
• This has been the second-hottest May since 1864, MeteoSwiss reported today, with temperatures regularly hitting the mid-20s. The monthly average has been 2.6°C above the norm for the 1991-2020 period.
• Nine-time Derby winner and horse racing legend Lester Piggott has died in Switzerland aged 86, his son-in-law confirmedExternal link. Piggott had reportedly moved to Rolle, canton Vaud, in 2012.

© Keystone / Stringer

Stones fly at start of Bern biker brawl trial.

Around 200 Hells Angels and Bandidos motorbike gang members faced off outside a court in the Swiss capital, Bern, today ahead of the start of a month-long trial into a violent clash between the two gangs in 2019.

There was a heavy police presence in Bern to separate rival gang members who had travelled to Bern from other parts of Switzerland and abroad. Some stones and bottles were thrown, and the police used water cannon and rubber bullets.

Twenty-two rival gang members are accused of taking part in a fight at Belp, southeast of Bern, in May 2019 that resulted in numerous injuries. Two men are accused of attempted intentional homicide, while another man is charged with grievous bodily harm. After stopping the fight, the police seized numerous weapons, including guns, knives and baseball bats.

According to the cantonal prosecutor, the violence in Belp erupted after the Bandidos gang, which was not officially represented in Switzerland at the time, allegedly tried to open a chapter there. The Hells Angels and their allies the Broncos saw this as a provocation and decided to intimidate and disturb a Bandidos party at Belp. A verdict is due on June 30.

The Bern trial comes after a shooting incidentExternal link in a bar in Geneva on May 21 between Hells Angels and Bandidos gang members.

There are reportedlyExternal link around 200 Hells Angels gang members in Switzerland and around 40 Bandidos. A number of smaller gangs are also thought to be present.

Keystone / Monika Flueckiger

The summer session of parliament opened today in Bern.

Parliamentarians from the House of Representatives and the Senate will be busy over the next three weeks with a packed agenda of important dossiers: from how to deal with the consequences of the war in Ukraine to climate change and fighter jets.

The summer sessionExternal link, which runs until June 17, includes a special focus on Ukraine. Parliamentarians will be deliberating whether to tighten Swiss embargo law and expand the ability to impose sanctions not only on states but on individuals and companies if there are serious violations of international humanitarian law. Both chambers will also debate whether to set up a taskforce to track Russian assets in Switzerland or whether to support a call by the People’s Party for a relief package in response to higher petrol and energy prices.

The Senate will also discuss the CHF6 billion credit for new fighter jets and a planned increase in the army budget – from CHF5.3 billion to CHF9 billion a year from 2030, as approved earlier by the House of Representatives.

Over four days, lawmakers will be considering two initiatives aimed at combating rising healthcare costs.

The House of Representatives will discuss an indirect counter–proposal to the “Glacier Initiative”, which seeks a net-zero target for greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The counter-proposal focuses on massive financial investment in building renovations.

Senators will also be debating revisions to the Swiss criminal code regarding consensual sex and the definition of rape.