The week in Switzerland
Dear Swiss Abroad,
In the week that the Northern Lights lit up parts of Switzerland, many people saw red at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The “Dominator of Davos”, as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung called US President Donald Trump, used his speech to insult practically everyone and everything he could think of, including his hosts.
US President Donald Trump lashed out at Europe and confirmed his Greenland ambitions during a 70-minute speech at the WEF on Wednesday.
Trump turned up in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos “wielding an insult bazooka”, The Guardian wrote. “He mocked Emmanuel Macron’s aviator sunglasses, chided Mark Carney (‘Canada lives because of the United States’), asserted that the Swiss are ‘only good because of us’ and had a dig at Denmark for losing Greenland ‘in six hours’ during the Second World War.”
“Holy shit. Is it just me or is this a new low of absurd, incoherent, fact-free babble even by Trumpian standards?” posted Cédric Wermuth, co-president of the left-wing Social Democratic Party.
“He came, blustered, threatened and praised himself,” summed up Swiss public broadcaster SRF in an analysis. “Once again, it became clear that the US president is living in his own fiction. A fiction that is increasingly becoming a dangerous ride for the rest of the world.”
“Ultimately, Trump’s Davos speech delivered what was to be expected,” concluded Swiss news portal Watson. “It was a double-edged affair for the image of the World Economic Forum. Instead of providing solutions, it only emphasised why so much of the world is going in the wrong direction.”
While Trump fired insults at Switzerland and Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter, the Swiss government – desperate to sign a 15% tariff deal with the US – is being careful not to trigger the US president.
“The government’s strategy for the next two days of the WEF is quite clear,” Swiss public broadcaster SRF said on Tuesday. “It wants to make progress on the tariff agreement with the US without antagonising Trump. This also means that the government is unlikely to criticise the US president’s Greenland plans.” SRF predicted the government was also unlikely to reject Trump’s invitation to his so-called Board of Peace, which many diplomats see as a counter-project to the United Nations.
In August Trump set a tariff rate of 39% for Switzerland – significantly higher than the rates he imposed on the European Union (15%) and the UK (10%). On Wednesday he appeared to confirm that the Swiss figure was personal. During his speech at the WEF he said he had initially set the rate at 30% but made it 39% after a heated telephone call with Keller-Sutter, who held the rotating Swiss presidency last year. Trump said she was “very repetitive” and “so aggressive” – “she just rubbed me the wrong way”.
At another point in his speech, Trump targeted Switzerland again, saying “they’re only good because of us”, prompting gasps from the audience, according to the New York Times.
However, while the Swiss are keen to sign a deal, there are limits. “The lack of respect for Switzerland and its president last year is unacceptable,” said Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis on Thursday. Particularly disconcerting, he added, was that Trump’s comments were followed by a bilateral meeting – “as if nothing had happened. We’re not used to that. It wears on the nerves. But we have to keep a cool head”.
Also on Thursday Economics Minister Guy Parmelin said he had held “very constructive talks” with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on a trade deal. Parmelin said a first round of technical negotiations would take place in Bern as soon as possible.
As new details emerge about the Crans-Montana tragedy and the actions of the authorities and the bar owners, criticism in the foreign press is growing. We talked to international journalists covering the story.
“The Italian attitude is that adults protect young people,” said Carmelo Abbate, a journalist and commentator for Mediaset. “But here adults led many young people into a trap due to greed and carelessness.” Six Italians were among the 40 who died in the Le Constellation bar fire on New Year’s Eve; another ten Italians were among the 116 seriously injured.
Serge Enderlin, Swiss correspondent for French daily Le Monde, pointed out that the most vital information was not published by the institutions but by the press. “The dysfunctional attitude of the authorities became apparent quite quickly, so you assume that some things were covered up.”
On Tuesday Swiss public broadcaster RTS reported that Swiss safety inspectors had been aware of health and safety issues at Le Constellation for years.
Henry Samuel, Paris correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, said many of the British newspaper’s readers were questioning whether money and connections could buy silence in the resort, and more widely, in Switzerland, “long seen as an opaque tax haven for rich people who don’t want too many questions asked”.
This week the owners of the bar, Jacques and Jessica Moretti, were questioned by the cantonal public prosecutor.
Veronika, a Brown Swiss, has amazed researchers by using a broom to scratch specific areas of her body. Such tool use was not previously known to be possessed by cattle.
The discovery has shaken the common mockery of the “stupid cow”, said study leader Alice Auersperg from the Research Institute for Human-Animal Relations in Vienna, funded by the Swiss Messerli Foundation.
Auersperg said she received an email with a video of Veronika in action. “We’re always cautious with videos like this – in the age of deepfakes, you never know if videos are real,” she said. So the researchers travelled to southern Austria, where Veronika lives. “We thought it might take a day or two to see this behaviour, but we walked into the field and within seconds Veronika picked up a stick with her tongue, held it in her mouth, and started scratching herself with it,” she said.
There is no suggestion that Veronika’s skills are evidence of the evolution of an ominous new species of super-cow, The Guardian reassured its readers.
The week ahead
The nominations for the Swiss Film Prize will be announced on Tuesday evening at the Solothurn Film Days. Nominees will have to wait until March 27 to find out whether they have won.
Many Swiss companies are reporting their figures for 2025 this week, including Lonza (on Wednesday) and Glencore, Roche, Emmi, Givaudan and ABB (on Thursday).
Science festival Aha. Ein Festival für Wissen is taking place again in Lucerne on Friday and Saturday, targeting “a broad and curious non-specialist public”.
Edited by Samuel Jaberg
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