Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
2025 has so far been an unusually poor voting year at the federal level in Switzerland. Today it was revealed on which issues voters will have their say on September 28.
We’ll also talk about the state visit of the president of Kosovo, Swiss funding for UNRWA, and Booking.com’s commissions that have got the Swiss price watchdog’s goat.
Enjoy the read!
The topics for the federal vote on September 28 were announced today by the government. The people will have their say on the new Digital Identity Act (e-ID), against which a referendum has been launched, and on the imposition of secondary residences.
Free and optional, e-ID is intended to make it easier, among other things, to apply online for a criminal record or driving licence, or to allow people to prove their age online to buy alcohol, for example. It is planned to be introduced in 2026 at the earliest and will be in public hands, unlike the privately managed e-ID that the public rejected in 2021.
The other issue on the ballot concerns parliament’s decision in December to abolish the taxable rental value for main and secondary residences. For the tourism cantons, however, this decision would lead to a significant loss of revenue.
Parliament therefore approved a special tax on secondary residences for personal use. The cantons will be free to decide whether to levy this tax. Since the amendment involves changing the constitution, it is subject to a mandatory referendum.
A curiosity: in canton Graubünden these federal votes will be the first in which questions on the ballot papers will also be written in Romansh.
The President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani Sadriu, is in Switzerland today and tomorrow. This is the first official visit of a Kosovan head of state, an event that confirms the “close and diverse relations” of the two countries, the federal administration says.
To mark the occasion, Le Temps is devoting an article full of testimonies on this closeness, which is particularly linked to the significant Kosovar diaspora in Switzerland, estimated at 160,000 people. Of the 300,000 or so Albanian-speaking people, a large proportion come from Kosovo. Albanian is the second most widely spoken foreign language in Switzerland after English.
In announcing the visit, the Swiss government recalled how Switzerland provided humanitarian aid to the country during the Kosovo war in the late 1990s and later launched reconstruction and development programmes. The Swiss army has participated in the multinational peacekeeping mission KFOR Kosovo since 1999.
Sadriu will meet most of the seven Swiss government ministers. Topics on the agenda will touch on Switzerland’s European policy, the war in Ukraine and relations with the United States. The second part of the visit will be devoted to the economy, education and innovation, with a visit tomorrow to an industry in eastern Switzerland and to the teaching centre at the University of St Gallen.
The government announced today that Switzerland will pay CHF10 million ($12.1 million) to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) this year. An additional CHF1 million will be dedicated to strengthening UNRWA’s impartiality and CHF9 million to four other humanitarian organisations.
Following Israeli accusations that UNRWA supports Palestinian militant group Hamas, the funding of the UN agency was also discussed at length in Switzerland. In March, parliament decided not to suspend its contribution, but in 2024 it was halved (CHF10 million instead of the planned CHF20 million). Parliament also asked the government to look for alternative solutions.
Today’s government announcement takes into account the findings of an independent report on UNRWA’s impartiality by former French Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna. The investigation found a robust oversight system within UNRWA but still issued 50 recommendations. The additional CHF1 million from the government intends to support its implementation.
The other humanitarian organisations that will share the CHF9 million are the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Swiss Red Cross/Palestine Red Crescent for their activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
The Swiss price watchdog today ordered the online travel agency Booking.com to reduce the commissions imposed on Swiss hotels, deemed “abusive and excessively high” in the absence of real competition.
Booking.com must comply with the Federal Price Supervisory Act and “will have to reduce its commissions by almost a quarter within three months of the decision coming into force and apply the reduction for three years”, said the statement from Stefan Meierhans.
In a position statement sent to various media, Booking.com explained that it had decided to appeal. “We do not agree with the idea of imposing a cost reduction for a service that is entirely optional,” it said.
Christoph Hans, head of public affairs at the HotellerieSuisse trade association, welcomed the supervisory authority’s decision. “We’ve been waiting for it since 2017,” he told Swiss public broadcaster, RSI, explaining that 77% of platform bookings in Switzerland are made on Booking.com. “It can do what it wants,” Hans said. HotellerieSuisse is also considering whether to seek compensation for excess commissions paid in the past.
Translated from Italian by DeepL/ts
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
