Switzerland Today

Greetings from Lausanne!

It’s pretty quiet today in this part of the country. But in some German-speaking regions there’s a war on – albeit a pretend one. Operation Pilum 22 is underway, with 5,000 Swiss soldiers taking part in Switzerland’s biggest military exercise in over 30 years.

For residents in cantons Bern, Solothurn, Aargau, Lucerne and Zurich it might well seem like a real war is raging. Tanks are expected on the streets and roadblocks manned by armed soldiers. Fortunately, there is a special hotline they can call if the situation gets out of control or too noisy.

Read on for more on Pilum 22 and other stories.

Rolex/Jean-Daniel Meyer

In the news: Rolex plans new factory and jobs, beer sales are up and possibly the world’s most expensive hot dog is on sale.

• The luxury Swiss watch brand Rolex hopes to invest CHF1 billion ($1 billion) in a new productionsite at Bulle in western Switzerland that should result in 2,000 new jobs.
• Switzerland and France are strengthening judicial, police and customs cooperation to step up the fight against cross-border crime. They have set up a joint working group to examine how to improve existing police cooperation.
• Switzerland’s largest producer of renewable energy, Axpo, has announced plans to build solar plants both in the Alps and in lower-lying regions of the country by 2030 to produce 1.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year – the equivalent of the electricity usage of more than 300,000 households.
• Swiss brewers are celebrating after a strong year, boosted by the hot weather. The Swiss brewery association reportedExternal link a 6.2% increase in beer sales over the past year to almost 468.7 million litres. National production continues to rise with 35 Swiss breweries now operating country wide.
• There are expensive hot dogs – and then there are luxury-take-out-a-second-mortgage hot dogs. Anyone with plenty of spare cash might be interested in what’s on offer at Lucerne’s Christmas market: a sausage of Japanese Kobe beef in a saffron-flavoured bun, topped with Alba white truffle, French champagne foam, chocolate crumble and a gold-plated peppercorn. Price: CHF250 ($262).

© Keystone / Georgios Kefalas

On Tuesday, around 5,000 Swiss soldiers beganExternal link “Pilum 22” – the largest army exercise in Switzerland since 1989.

The country’s top military commanders want to properly evaluateExternal link the army’scapacity to defend the country and its inhabitants in case of an armed conflict.

In all, four mechanised battalions, together with a logistics battalion and mountain infantry troops, are taking part in the exercise in cantons Bern, Solothurn, Aargau, Lucerne and Zurich from November 22-29.

Other army groups taking part include an electronic warfare group and a Special Forces Command detachment.

A special hotline [phone]) has been put in place for residents to share concerns about the noise and other disruption.

Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott

Swiss resorts and hotels again feature strongly in the 2022 World Ski Awards.

Verbier in canton Valais (pictured) was voted the best ski resort in the world for the second year running by the World Ski Awards organisation. It was chosen in particular for its “state-of-the-art lifts, fine chalets and thriving après-ski”.

It was a double celebration for the chic resort in western Switzerland as the W Verbier took the 2022 award for the “World’s Best Ski Hotel”.

Meanwhile, Laax, in canton Graubünden, beat off competition from resorts like Les 2 Alpes (France) and Breckenridge, Whistler and Mammoth Mountain (US) to become the “World’s Best Freestyle Resort”.

The World Ski Awards were launched in 2013 with the aim of “driving up standards in the ski tourism industry”. Votes are cast online by ski industry professionals – senior executives, travel buyers, tour operators and the media – and the public.