Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
In today’s briefing: Switzerland decides what to do with some of its old tanks, and a miraculous technology that helps a paralysed man walk again.
Read on for more news and stories from Switzerland.
In the news: human rights, ICRC job cuts, Tariq Ramadan acquittal, copyright law and tobacco advertising bans.
- Switzerland has officially launched its National Human Rights Institution in Bern. Many years in the making, the permanent watchdog opens a new avenue for the defence of human rights in the country.
- The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has confirmed the bad news. It must carry out larger-than-expected cost-cutting measures to humanitarian staff and offices worldwide due to financial pressures: 1,800 job cuts and the closure of at least 26 of its 350 global sites.
- The renowned Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan (photo above), who was accused of “rape and sexual coercion”, has been cleared by a Geneva court. The case was brought by a Swiss woman who said she had been raped by Ramadan in a Geneva hotel in October 2008.
- The Swiss government saysExternal link it backs changes to national copyright law to require large online service providers — including social media platforms and search engines like Google and Facebook — to pay media companies for use of their journalistic content, even small excerpts.
- The government wants to ban advertising of tobacco products and e–cigarettes aimed at young people in printed media, kiosks and on the internet from 2026. The proposed legal amendments, aimed at implementing last year’s successful “Yes to the protection of children against tobacco advertising” people’s initiative, must now go before parliament.
Swiss government agrees to selling 25 old tanks back to Germany.
Ninety-six Leopard 2 tanks are sitting mothballed in a hall in eastern Switzerland. The Swiss government now says it agrees that 25 of the tanks can be decommissioned, thereby enabling their sale back to their German manufacturer Rheinmetall. The Federal Council saysExternal link the army still needs the remaining 71 ageing tanks kept in storage.
In turn, Berlin would be able to fill the gaps in its army that were created by supporting Ukraine with German tanks.
The government move follows a positive vote in March by the security commission of the House of Representatives.
In February, German ministers Robert Habeck (economy) and Boris Pistorius (defence) wrote to Swiss Defence Minister Viola Amherd asking Switzerland to resell the disused tanks while pledging not to transfer them to Ukraine.
The Swiss parliament must still agree on the decommissioning of the tanks this summer before an export licence can be granted.
Under its neutrality laws and a separate arms embargo, Switzerland is prohibited from sending weapons directly to Ukraine. Bern has previously blocked requests from Germany, Spain and Denmark to allow Swiss-made munitions and military equipment they have previously bought to be re-exported to Ukraine.
However, the Swiss public and politicians are increasingly divided on the issue, as calls from European neighbours for Switzerland to allow exports grow louder and Russia intensifies its assault on Ukraine.
Switzerland has no unique claim to Emmental cheese, EU court rules.
Swiss makers of Emmental cheese have lost their demand to exclusively use the trademark “Emmentaler” in the European Union.
The EU Court ruled on Wednesday that the term Emmentaler refers to a type of cheese familiar in German-speaking countries as opposed to a specific region in Switzerland.
The verdict means that Emmentaler cannot be designated a protected trademark in the EU, dealing a blow to makers of the Swiss cheese with distinctive holes.
It follows a decision in the United States last year that another well-known Swiss cheese, Gruyére, does not have to come from the Swiss region of the same name.
The cheese organisation Emmentaler Switzerland argued in vain to the EU court that Emmental cheeses from outside of Switzerland should be clearly labelled as such.
The Luxembourg judgment can still be appealed to the highest European court, the European Court of Justice.
Paralysed man walks again using thought-controlled brain-spine device.
A man whose lower body was left completely paralysed after a spinal cord injury can walk naturally, stand and climb stairs thanks to wireless implants and technology that restore communication between his brain and spinal cord, a Swiss-led team of researchers has reported.
Gert-Jan, 40, suffered a spinal cord injury following a bicycle accident that left him paralysed.
“When we met Gert-Jan he was unable to take a step after a severe spinal cord injury. There is an interruption of the communication between the brain and the region of the spinal cord that controls movement of the legs,” explains Jocelyne Bloch of the Vaud University Hospital Center (CHUV).
To re-establish this communication, scientists in Switzerland have developed a “digital bridge” – a brain-computer interface (BCI) technology – that transforms thoughts into actions. Electrodes were implanted above the region of the patient’s brain responsible for controlling leg movements. A neurostimulator connected to an electrode array was also placed over the region of the spinal cord that controls leg movement.
The first implants decode the patient’s intention to move and send the information to a device that translates it into stimulation to induce the desired movement, explains Grégoire Courtine, professor of neurosciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL).
“For the first time this digital bridge will bypass an injury and restore the communication between two regions of the central nervous system that are disconnected,” says Courtine.
“A few months ago, for the first time after ten years I was able to stand up and have a beer with my friends so that was pretty cool,” he says. “This simple pleasure represents a significant change in my life.”
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