The week in Switzerland
Dear Swiss Abroad,
As Storm Benjamin batters Switzerland, media storm Donald continues, with rumours that the US president will attend the WEF annual meeting in January.
Also this week we look at a government decision on whether to ban headscarves for children in state schools, how horticulturalist Rudi Berli has become one of the very few Swiss Abroad to have a seat in parliament in Bern, and why golf is booming in Switzerland.
The Swiss government does not want to ban schoolgirls from wearing headscarves in state schools. It argues that the current law sufficiently ensures that everyone can take part in school, sports and swimming lessons.
The government examined such a ban after receiving a corresponding mandate from the House of Representatives in 2024. In a statement on Wednesday it wrote that this was an issue for Switzerland’s 26 cantons. In a liberal society, dress regulations should remain the exception. Children should be allowed to wear a headscarf to school, it said.
Banning Muslim schoolgirls from wearing headscarves across the board would be unfair and discriminatory, said Önder Günes, president of the Swiss Federation of Islamic Umbrella Organisations. “That would not be Swiss at all and would not be compatible with religious freedom,” he told Swiss public radio, SRF.
Marianne Binder, the parliamentarian who had put forward the postulate calling for the government report, was not satisfied with the government’s position. “I think that the children’s headscarf hinders a child’s development due to its stigmatising and discriminatory nature,” she told SRF.
The Tages-Anzeiger in Zurich reckoned the justice ministry had delivered an ideologically motivated report and dodged the crucial questions. “It doesn’t do justice to the topic – and certainly not to the girls,” it wrote in an editorial. “Nowhere does the report address the crucial question of why children’s hair should be covered in the first place. Or what it does to girls when they learn at an early age that they should hide something, that something about them is shameful, and that they are only ‘right’ if they dress a certain way.”
Will he? Won’t he? On Wednesday CH Media reported that US President Donald Trump had invited himself to the next annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), held in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos in January.
Neither the WEF nor the Swiss government has confirmed the reports, but that hasn’t stopped excited speculation that Trump’s visit – his third to the WEF as president – could result in a breakthrough in the ongoing customs stand-off. Several industries suffering from the 39% tariffs levied by the US on Swiss exports are hoping the government will finally have an opportunity in Davos to resolve the issue with Trump in person, according to Swiss public television SRF.
“I’m very pleased about this news,” parliamentarian Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter told SRF. The president of the Basel Chambers of Commerce saw a new negotiating window for the government at the WEF. “Obviously Switzerland is still on Mr Trump’s agenda. The WEF is an opportunity to exchange ideas.”
Economics Minister Guy Parmelin will take over the rotating Swiss presidency from Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter in January and would therefore welcome Trump in Davos. “The chemistry between Trump and Keller-Sutter was clearly not good,” SRF noted, adding that this could be one of the reasons why Switzerland hadn’t yet been able to get the high tariffs lifted.
“It’s a coup for the WEF – and at the same time a dance on a razor’s edge,” wrote Blick. “On the one hand, after all the turbulence and scandals surrounding the dismissal of founder Klaus Schwab, the business meeting can certainly benefit from Trump’s charisma. On the other hand, the man from the White House is pursuing a policy that clearly contradicts the values of the WEF.”
Swiss Abroad Rudi Berli has joined a very small group of people who don’t live in Switzerland but who have a seat in parliament in Bern.
Berli will take his place in the House of Representatives from December 1 following the election of Green Party politician Nicolas Walder to the cantonal government of Geneva.
Originally from Zurich, Berli is a horticulturist and long-time member of Uniterre, a Swiss agricultural trade union. He lives in Pougny, just a kilometre from the border, and crosses daily to work at the Jardins de Cocagne near Geneva. He says he intends to continue combining his political work with his agricultural vocation.
Berli is the fourth Swiss Abroad to have a seat in the House of Representatives. Husband and wife Ruedi and Stephanie Baumann sat in parliament in the 1990s and early 2000s and moved to France during their last term of office. Former ambassador Tim Guldimann was elected to the House of Representatives in 2015 while living in Berlin. He resigned two years later, finding it difficult to reconcile parliamentary duties with life abroad.
Half a billion francs a year: golf in Switzerland is no longer just a sport, but a booming economic ecosystem.
“Golf is a much less privileged sport than it was 40 years ago,” Lukas Eisner, president of the Swiss Golf Federation, told the AWP news agency on Wednesday. Back then there were 68 golf courses in Switzerland; after the wave of construction in the 1980s there are now 98.
“Since the outbreak of the pandemic, demand has been growing,” he points out, estimating the number of members at over 105,000, 30% of whom are women.
Annual membership fees vary widely between clubs, ranging – for those who agreed to disclose them – from CHF1,000 ($1,250) to CHF7,000. This is good value compared to the CHF100,000 often found in the United States, but green fees, which range from CHF80 to CHF150 per course, are rising sharply.
The week ahead
“Mensch, Erde! – Das Klima im Wandel” (Earth, folks! – The changing climate), a new permanent exhibition at Bern’s Natural History Museum, opens on Sunday. It invites visitors “on an exciting journey through Earth’s history with a focus on the greatest challenge of our time: anthropogenic climate change.”
The Yearbook on the Quality of the Media 2025 is published on Monday. How rosy/grim is the situation for Swiss media?
How much will political parties be spending on their campaigns ahead of two national referendums on November 30? On Friday the Federal Audit Office will publish the campaign budgets.
Edited by Samuel Jaberg/sb
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
