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Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
On Christmas Eve, we hope you can take a few moments to pause and reflect, and – if you have the chance – to celebrate!
Here in Switzerland, shops are full of meat for the festive season. Today’s briefing features the boss of a major meat processor, who has offered some insights into the industry. Meanwhile the case of a sanctioned Swiss ex-colonel is also making waves in the media.
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The former Swiss colonel Jacques Baud is blacklisted in Brussels; the European Union (EU) has put him on a sanctions list. Baud now wants to defend his case.
During his career, Baud had a reputation as a secret service expert, and his analyses regularly appeared in Swiss media. In recent years, he published books on the Russian war against Ukraine and on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At the beginning of the week, the EU froze his assets. As a result, citizens and companies in the EU are now prohibited from making funds or resources available to him. In addition, Baud can no longer enter or travel through the EU.
The 70-year-old ex-colonel is a “regular” guest on pro-Russian TV and radio shows, according to the EU’s regulation implementing the sanctions. For example, it said, Baud has accused Ukraine of having provoked the Russian invasion in order to join NATO.
Baud now wants to challenge the sanctions, and he will also lodge a complaint with the European Court of Justice, he told the Keystone-SDA news agency. The sanctions decision was purely political, not legally motivated, he claims.
The Swiss population is showing no signs of becoming less carnivore. The CEO of a big meat processing firm has provided some insights into the industry.
According to the CEO of meat processor Bell, the trend towards meat substitute products is over. Sales of such substitutes are only growing by between 0% and 1% per year, which is why they have become a niche product, Marco Tschanz told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). He says the reasons for the stagnating growth are the taste and the high degree of processing needed by such ersatz products.
Tschanz also told the paper that the bigger picture hasn’t hugely shifted. “Consumers are paying more attention to animal welfare and the Swiss origin of products than they used to,” he said. “But we are not seeing less meat being eaten, on the contrary. In the case of chicken, for example, per capita consumption rose by around 8% last year alone.”
Tschanz doesn’t believe that chicken from US factory farms will catch on in Switzerland. “Even if sales were to be authorised, they wouldn’t stand a chance with consumers,” he reckons. Bell is not planning to import any chicken products from the US.
Meanwhile, Bell has noticed another trend: some consumers, facing tighter budgets, are switching to cheaper meat.
The “FIFA Peace Prize” trophy, awarded this month by football’s governing body to US President Donald Trump, is a miniature copy of a sculpture in the UN Park in Geneva.
According to the NZZ, the statue is a mini-version of a four-metre-high bronze sculpture called “Thoughts and Desires”, located in the park at UN headquarters in Geneva. The sculpture was a gift from Azerbaijan, who donated it in 2017 to mark the 25th anniversary of its UN membership.
“In this case, the globe also symbolises a football carried by people from different countries and continents,” says Azerbaijani artisan Salhab Mammadov, co-creator of the original, about the miniature’s use as a peace trophy. Mammadov also created the medal which Trump put on himself at the award ceremony at the beginning of December. She also revealed that the White House had asked her to make the trophy at least as big as the World Cup trophy.
The international response to FIFA boss Gianni Infantino’s ingratiation efforts with Trump was described by the Swiss media as “withering”. The British Mirror, for example, called Infantino’s behaviour a “dismal display of political sycophancy”.
The Swiss government wants to make the new emergency number for domestic violence cases more visible – using stickers on milk packaging.
In Switzerland, the new national emergency phone number 142 for victims of domestic and sexual violence is due to go live in May. Victims can call the number around the clock to get immediate help and counselling.
A campaign with posters, flyers and videos has been running since November to spread the word. But Social Democrat politician Simona Brizzi doesn’t think this is enough; she has suggested that the number be printed on the packaging of daily products like milk cartons. The idea has been well received by the government, newspapers from the CH Media group write; the Interior Ministry has asked retailers about cooperating.
In Switzerland, milk has no history as a pillar of advertising. This is different abroad: in the US, for example, dairies printed pictures of missing children on milk cartons in the 1980s. However, the practice was later abandoned; child psychologists warned that the campaigns would unnecessarily frighten children at breakfast.
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