Switzerland Today
Dear readers,
The skies are clearing for Swissinfo. After the Senate, the House of Representatives has also refused to cut funding for the medium you are reading right now.
As for money, we now know what the new Swiss banknotes will look like. But we will have to wait several years before we can put them in our wallets.
Happy reading!
The outlook for Swiss winegrowing is mixed. On the one hand, the 2025 harvest looks set to be “exceptional”. On the other, Swiss wines are struggling to sell, forcing some winegrowers to pull up their vines.
Favourable weather last year allowed Swiss winegrowers to produce 82 million litres of wine, up 9.3% on 2024. The increase was particularly marked in German-speaking Switzerland (+32%), where production reached 13.7 million litres. In French-speaking Switzerland, the rise was more moderate (+6.3%), but the region remains by far the country’s leading producer with 64.4 million litres. Only the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland recorded a decline (-8.1%), due to unfavourable weather and pressure from the Japanese beetle.
Quality is also on the rise. “The wines of the 2025 vintage, which are currently maturing, are of particularly outstanding quality,” the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) said in a statement.
However, the sector remains under pressure. “High production costs, falling sales and high stocks are threatening the profitability of some farms,” FOAG noted. One possible solution is a reduction in production, or in other words, the voluntary grubbing-up of vines, a measure supported by the government and the cantons. One tenth of the vineyards in the three main wine-producing cantons (Valais, Vaud and Geneva) could disappear over the next two years.
One of the big clouds hanging over Swissinfo is lifting. Today the House of Representatives voted by 104 to 84 against abolishing federal funding for the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC)’s international mandate.
During the winter session, the Senate had already rejected the measure, which is part of the government’s “savings package 27“.
The proposal called for scrapping the annual CHF19 million ($24.4 million) contribution used to finance the SBC’s international mandate. The cut would have affected not only Swissinfo – which is financed partly by the federal budget and partly by the SBC – but also Switzerland’s contributions to TV5Monde, tvsvizzera.it and 3sat. The House of Representatives also refused to cut indirect support for the press, which includes subsidies for newspaper distribution.
In December, the SSM media union and several organisations – including the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad – submitted a petition to parliament with more than 17,000 signatures. The petition urged parliamentarians to reject the cuts, arguing that “Switzerland needs a strong voice on the international stage”.
However, not all threats facing public media have yet been averted. On Sunday, voters will decide on a popular initiative to reduce the annual SBC radio and television licence fee for households from CHF335 to CHF200 ($429 to $256) and to exempt businesses from paying it altogether. According to the latest poll released last week, the proposal will be rejected by 54%.
Switzerland is one of the countries where people pay the most for healthcare. But there is some consolation: the system performs well. Switzerland occupies a particularly strong position in the latest ranking of the world’s best hospitals, published by the American magazine Newsweek and the data institute Statista.
The “World’s Best Hospitals 2026” ranking assessed 2,530 hospitals in 32 countries. It is based primarily on recommendations from healthcare professionals, hospital quality and safety indicators, and patient-reported experience.
Three North American hospitals occupy the top spots: the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, followed by Toronto General Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic. The best Swiss institution – Zurich University Hospital – ranked ninth, confirming its reputation as a leading medical centre thanks to the quality of its care, its strength in clinical research and its performance in patient safety.
Geneva University Hospitals made the most striking progress, climbing from 53rd to 19th place worldwide. Overall, the 33 Swiss hospitals and clinics included in the ranking performed strongly, with relatively small performance gaps – reflecting a very homogeneous level of quality across Switzerland.
We now know a little more about the next Swiss banknotes. Today the Swiss National Bank (SNB) unveiled the results of its design competition for the next banknote series.
The mandate was awarded to Emphase, an agency based in Val-d’Or in canton Bern, whose project received the highest score in a multi-stage evaluation process involving more than 300 submissions.
The theme of the new banknote series is “Switzerland and its altitudes”. According to the SNB, it pays tribute to the country’s unique topography – from the Jura to the Plateau and the Alps – illustrating its diversity.
The design is not yet final and may still evolve. The two winners of the competition, Fabienne Kilchör and Sébastien Fasel, will now work with the SNB to refine the project, including the integration of security features.
The series – the tenth series of Swiss banknotes – will not enter circulation until the early 2030s at the earliest. In the meantime, the 12 finalist designs are on display at the SNB Forum in Zurich, allowing the public to see the many proposals submitted in this closely watched competition.
Translated using AI/amva/ts
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