Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
We used to be proud of our country’s ability get along with anyone and mediate in international conflicts. But now things seem to be changing. Switzerland is drifting more and more to the sidelines of international diplomacy. The most recent example of this is last week’s news that China has brokered a truce between Iran and Saudi Arabia on its own.
Best regards from Bern.
Switzerland loses its two protecting power mandates.
“This is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing,” declared a frustrated Swiss foreign policy expert. What is he talking about?
China – not Switzerland – has successfully brokered a truce between Iran and Saudi Arabia (photo above). Switzerland held so-called protecting power mandates with the two feuding states. The agreement announced last Friday to re-establish Iran-Saudi ties and reopen embassies after seven years was seen as a major diplomatic victory for China.
Switzerland’s protecting power mandates between the two countries had been in force since 2018 and ensured that the consular services of both countries could be maintained in the other state. Switzerland has carried out a similar role between Iran and the United States for decades.
Switzerland likes to present itself as an international peace broker, as my colleagues Giannis Mavris and Balz Rigendinger have written about. But Switzerland’s so-called good offices are less and less in demand in the current tense global contexts.
- SWI swissinfo article by Giannis Mavris and Balz Rigendinger
- “Countdown in Georgia: Switzerland’s influence is dwindling (in German): SWI swissinfo.ch article by Elena Servettaz and Balz Rigendinger.
- Due to the violent suppression of uprising, the role of Switzerland in Iran has recently come into focus again. “Iranian protests test Switzerland’s special status with Iran”
Swiss President regrets reference to ‘warlike frenzy’ over Ukraine.
Following a backlash over his recent remark about a “warlike frenzy in certain circles” over Ukraine, Swiss President Alain Berset admits he made a mistake about his choice of words.
“It was not the right choice of words,” Berset toldExternal link the Tages-Anzeiger paper on Wednesday.
In an interview in the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday, the Swiss interior minister, who holds the rotating presidency role this year, bemoaned a “warlike frenzy” over Ukraine among certain people, referring to those who are urging Switzerland to forsake its neutrality and allow export of arms to Ukraine.
According to media reports, Berset’s NZZ interview sparked a domestic and international backlash “far beyond Europe” and critical articles in The New York Times and Financial Times.
Even his own party reprimanded the minister. But it looks as if the debate in Switzerland is more of an issue in German-speaking regions. According to Der Bund newspaper, people in French-speaking Switzerland have “a lot of understanding” for Berset.
- Swiss public TV, SRF news report.External link
- InterviewExternal link in Tages-Anzeiger (German behind paywall).
- NZZ articleExternal link (German behind paywall)
- Watson.charticleExternal link (German) on Berset comment
A different kind of emigration – a Swiss couple ‘on the road’.
Sylvia Fäh and Michel Godart (photo above), a 56-year-old Swiss couple, have swapped their apartment for a camper van. Together with their dog, they have hit the road in search of adventure.
Since taking early retirement two-and-a-half years ago, they have been travelling constantly, as BeobachterreportsExternal link.
Thanks to an inheritance, the couple could afford to retire early. They have been fortunate. Many of their friends had looked forward to life after retiring only to fall seriously ill and find themselves unable to realise their dreams. “This should not happen to them,” the Beobachter author writes.
They have a monthly budget of CHF3,500-4,000 to live on comfortably. And they don’t have a guilty conscience towards their children. “They have a realistic view about it. Nobody has a right to demand an inheritance,” says Godart.
- The articleExternal link in Beobachter magazine.
- Drawing a Swiss pension when living abroad? Claude Chatelain recently answered the most important questions in this SWI swissinfo.ch articleExternal link (German and French).
- You can find everything you need to know about the Swiss abroad on our special website page.
Power-generating railway tracks are coming down the line.
It’s an impressive, original idea. Swiss start-up Sun-Ways wants to install removable solar panels between railway tracks. The space there is big enough to install standard-sized solar panels without obstructing train traffic, they say. The entrepreneurs have big ambitions and want to try their idea out in many countries.
They have proposed a clever technical solution to install the panels between the tracks. Sun-Ways uses solar panels made in Switzerland and pre-assembled in the factory. The one-metre-wide panels can be easily placed between rail tracks and attached to the rails using a piston mechanism. Installation is done mechanically by a train developed by Swiss track maintenance company Scheuchzer. As it moves forward, the train lays the photovoltaic panels along the railway track “like an unrolling carpet”, writes my colleague Luigi Jorio in his article.
A pilot project is planned in western Switzerland. However, it still faces several hurdles.
“The biggest challenge is not technological,” says co-founder Baptiste Danichert. “What is needed is a change of mentality in the railway sector, an area that’s usually not very open to innovation.”
- Find out how the solar railway track project is supposed to work and what challenges it faces here (in German).
- Last year, politicians in Switzerland also proposed putting more solar panels in high mountain areas. But not everyone is happy with the idea, as the report by Simon Bradley shows.
- ReportExternal link on the Sun-Ways pilot project on the 10vor10 programme on Swiss public television SRF (German).
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