Switzerland Today
The latest news and updates from Switzerland on Tuesday, March 5.
In the news: weapons at home and abroad.
- Swiss weapons exports fell by more than a quarter in 2023, the government said today. Industry association Swissmem told Reuters that restrictive Swiss neutrality rules played a role. But last year exports neared record highs, and flucutations are not unusual, the economics ministry said.
- Meanwhile parliament today rejected an idea to introduce a new national weapons database. Politicians say the current network of cantonal registers is adequate, and a national variant would just complicate and bureaucratise things.
- The Swiss parliament also rejected two initiatives calling for a national ban on sexual conversion therapies. But such a ban, already approved in some cantons, is not off the agenda: parliament is awaiting a report on the issue before taking further steps.
Switzerland: another year of not being despised.
“How does the world see us?” is a question which more powerful countries probably don’t have to ask themselves as often as little Switzerland, dependent as it is on good relations with as many nations as possible. And so, rather than just speculate about how others see it, the Swiss government puts out a yearly report on the image issue – drawn up by Presence Switzerland, a foreign ministry-affiliated communications arm.
Good news for 2023: “among the general public abroad”, Presence Switzerland writesExternal link, “Switzerland’s image remains very positive and largely stable overall, as in previous years.” How does it come to this conclusion? With a quantitative survey, first of all, called the “Nation Brands Index”, which last year placed Switzerland 7th out of 60 countries for its reputation; it does particularly well on “attractiveness as a location” and “quality of life”.
On the qualitative side things aren’t so rosy. Presence Switzerland’s global press monitoring finds that the main stories mentioning the country last year weren’t flattering: the crumble of Credit Suisse and the position of neutral Switzerland towards Ukraine – this latter was often portrayed in a “rather critical tone”. Perceptions of the Alpine nation in specific countries have also worsened in the past few years, Presence Switzerland says, warning that it is “important to keep an eye on these developments”.
Zurich: details emerge of “terrorist” stabbing.
It’s also been a bad few weeks for Switzerland’s image as a haven of security. While it largely still is a safe place, two incidents have cast a shadow: first an axe-wielding Iranian asylum seeker took 13 hostages on a regional train in canton Vaud, holding them for four hours until police stormed the train and shot him dead; then, on Saturday, an Orthodox Jew in Zurich was stabbed by a 15-year-old in what police have since called a terrorist attack.
In recent days, details of this latter incident have started to emerge: the suspect, arrested at the scene, is a Swiss citizen with Tunisian origins, police said yesterday; they also confirmed a video made before the attack in which the teenager declared allegiance to the Islamic State and called for a “global battle against Jews”; he also claimed he wanted to launch a wider attack on Jews and “non-Muslims” in Switzerland.
Police are now trying to figure out if he acted alone or with accomplices. In the meantime the attack has led to reactions and condemnations, and not just from Jewish and Muslim groups; politicians in Zurich are already arguing about responsibility. On Monday, left-wing members of the cantonal parliament walked outExternal link when a right-wing politician connected modern-day anti-Semitism to “asylum chaos” and “left-wing anticapitalism”.
Heli-skiing: decadence or efficiency?
In the densely-developed Swiss Alps, you’re never far from the next ski-lift. But for some adventurers, this isn’t enough – they want to get off the beaten slopes and into the fresh, untouched powder of the unexplored. And for those who have more money than energy – its hard work clambering up a snowy mountain-side with your skis – there’s always the option of “heli-skiing”, the Blick newspaper reportsExternal link.
As the name suggests, heli-skiing involves boarding a helicopter in the valley, flying up to one of Switzerland’s 40 mountain landing pads, before skiing down at your leisure – and then, for some, getting back into the helicopter to do it all over again. Over the past decade, an average of some 4,700 such flights happened each year, Blick reports, citing official figures released for the first time.
Almost three-quarters of such flights meanwhile happen in canton Valais, which also boasts 14 of the top 20 heli-skiing spots. But some such flights operated by the Air Zermatt company are more like a faster alternative than a real adventure, in that they fly skiers to a point where a (slower) ski-lift could already take them, Blick writes. All this annoys conservationists and environmentalists, who want to preserve the remaining untouched parts of the Alps.
As for costs however, the decadent-sounding practice is sometimes less expensive than it sounds; some heli-trips cost just CHF140 ($158) – peanuts by Swiss standards.
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