Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
Should the current retirement age (men 65, women 64 but 65 from 2025) be raised in Switzerland and pegged to life expectancy? Switzerland is a wealthy country but how far do Swiss pensioners struggle to make ends meet each month? The March 3 pension vote campaigns are up and running and the two initiatives are giving rise to animated debates across the country.
An article in today’s Aargauer Zeitung takes a sober look at the finances of Swiss pensioners.
Read on for more news and stories from Switzerland today.
In the news: Swiss labour market, hot summers in the city and organ donors.
- The human resources firm Rundstedt reports that the years of growth on the Swiss labour market are over. The job placement specialist said companies had once again carried out more downsizing or reorganisation projects last year.
- The health cost of urban heat islands in Europe is comparable to that of air pollution, according to a studyExternal link by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). It amounts to CHF180 per adult per year.
- The number of organ donors rose by over a fifth last year. This is mainly due to innovations in technology and digitisation, said Swisstransplant.
EPFL may limit admissions for foreign Bachelor’s students.
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) is a victim of its own success. The number of university students has exploded in recent years: between 2010 and 2023, the number of Bachelor’s and Master’s students at EPFL grew from 5,283 to 10,894.
To guarantee the quality of its tuition, university officials are consideringExternal link limiting the number of new admissions to 3,000 places for first-year bachelor’s degrees as from 2025. The main impact of this proposed measure would be on students with foreign high school leaving certificates wanting to apply to EPFL.
As admissions have grown, EPFL has suffered from packed auditoriums and other infrastructure and higher student-to-professor ratios.
“Thanks to its teaching and research excellence, EPFL has become a university of choice, especially for high-school graduates in other countries. However, the growing size of our student body is putting a strain on the quality of the education we can provide,” EPFL said in a press release on Monday.
As a result, EPFL has decided to review its admission procedures, in accordance with Swiss law.
Their proposal is for all graduates with a Swiss school leaving certificate (Maturité) to be admitted without restriction, as required by law, along with anyone repeating their first year. Any places remaining would then be allocated to applicants with foreign high school leaving certificates, ranked in descending order of their secondary school leaving grades.
The proposed 3,000 entry limit effective from 2025 could remain in place for four years and may be renewed, depending on the results. A consultation has been launched that should run until March 18. A final decision will be taken during the second half of this year.
Switzerland wants greater human rights effort from China.
Switzerland has challenged China to improve its human rights record. The Asian country is currently completing its fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
On Tuesday, Switzerland called for investigations into the extent of arbitrary detentions that could constitute “crimes against humanity” in the Xinjiang region in western China. It also called for the protection of the Tibetan minority and urged Beijing to ensure that the prosecution of human rights activists and Hong Kong’s National Security Act are in line with international law.
The UPR peer-review process takes place roughly every five years. It is the only mechanism that ensures each country’s human rights performance is assessed by the international community. Countries get a chance to share their recommendations for the state under review, but these remain non-binding.
Some 163 countries were set to speak at the Tuesday session. Many states praised China’s efforts on human rights, including Ethiopia and Cameroon. Western countries raised concerns.
The review of China at the UN in Geneva this year is the first since the global body’s top rights official released a report in 2022 saying the detention of Uyghurs and other Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region may constitute crimes against humanity. More than a million Uyghurs are alleged to be interned in camps. Beijing talks instead of the re-education of “terrorists”. Beijing denies any abuses.
China’s delegation in Geneva stressed it had made progress since its last UN review in 2018, saying it had lifted nearly 100 million people out of poverty. Ambassador Chen Xu promised a large number of legislative and administrative measures to improve China’s record.
“No one can claim to be perfect” in terms of human rights, said Xu. But he called for a Chinese society in which all citizens have equal access to human rights. He promised to work with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
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