The week in Switzerland
Dear Swiss Abroad,
When you visit Switzerland, do you notice anything different since you emigrated? How about the number of tourists? If you fly into Switzerland on SWISS, you might see a light-hearted video campaign aiming to remind foreign visitors what is considered appropriate behaviour. The aim is to reduce tension between tourists and locals in some hotspots.
The war in the Middle East continues to have an impact on Switzerland. Dubai’s expats – in search of a haven from conflict in the Gulf – are homing in on canton Zug, the Financial Times reports.
“Everyone knows Zug, even if they haven’t been there,” said one Swiss wealth manager, which has helped a number of clients relocate from the Middle East. “The first request from clients is almost always Zug.”
The picturesque canton in central Switzerland has just 135,000 inhabitants and is better known for commodity traders and cryptocurrency firms. “Since the war started, we’ve noticed demand from foreigners living in Dubai – Italians, French, Swiss, British,” a Swiss estate agent told the FT. “Now they are considering moving away [from Dubai].”
However, for many would-be arrivals Switzerland’s appeal of stability comes with practical constraints, the FT explained. While EU citizens can move relatively freely under bilateral agreements, securing accommodation – particularly in Zug, which is just south of Zurich – can be a real challenge. Rental supply is extremely limited, with properties often snapped up within days and competition intense, the paper said.
In other Middle East news this week, a convoy from the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) arrived in Tehran with the first delivery of humanitarian supplies, Switzerland and nine other countries called for “an immediate end to the fighting in Lebanon”, and Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) said it would continue to suspend flights to and from Dubai until July 11.
In order to tackle Switzerland’s housing shortage, the government wants to tighten the law on home ownership by foreigners.
Citizens of non-EU/EFTA countries would have to get permission to buy an apartment in Switzerland in the future, the government said on Wednesday. If they move away, they would have to sell their property within two years. They would also no longer be able to buy properties and rent them out. The government also intends to tighten the screws on holiday homes: the annual quotas available to cantons for authorising purchases by foreign owners would be reduced. Sales between foreigners would also be subject to authorisation.
The consultation period on the revisions to the law – known as Lex Koller – runs until July 15.
Political reaction was split. The People’s Party said the government was ignoring the “elephant in the room”: the solution to high rents and property prices, it said, lay in the “independent management of immigration”.
The left-wing Social Democratic Party took a very different view. The government had closed a “stock-market loophole”, it wrote, calling the move a long-overdue improvement for tenants. The Social Democrats argue that foreign capital drives up land and property prices and, as a result, rents and the cost of owner-occupied housing.
More than 2,000 Swiss live in Hungary, where voters have ejected Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after 16 years of populist nationalism. The Swiss Abroad community – many of whom supported Orbán – tells Swissinfo that the winds of change had been blowing for months.
“I cracked open a bottle of sparkling wine at midnight to celebrate the election result! I don’t even stay up that late on New Year’s Eve,” said Swiss citizen Anita Szász, 64, who followed the parliamentary elections on April 12 very closely. Voters overwhelmingly backed opposition candidate Péter Magyar, a pro-European conservative.
“In my district of Budapest, a huge number of people went out to vote, especially young people,” said Markus Kretz, 72, president of the Swiss Club of Hungary. “The oldest and most politically rooted in Switzerland are very disappointed,” he admitted. This group represents around 30% of the diaspora, he said – “30% are waiting to see what happens next and 40% are delighted with the change”.
Péter Magyar’s victory has been welcomed by a large proportion of Swiss parliamentarians, who see the potential end of blockades in Brussels as a positive development. However, the right-wing Swiss People’s Party said it was disappointed by the defeat of Orbán, who it said was “a good counterweight to the rest of Europe”.
A video campaign wants to remind tourists of appropriate behaviour and improve relations with stressed locals. The initiative by Switzerland Tourism is aimed in particular at regions affected by overtourism.
In Lucerne, the influx of tourists provokes mixed reactions, Swiss public broadcaster RTS reported on Wednesday. “Sometimes you feel like you’re in Beijing or Mumbai. In the alleys [the tourists] don’t move aside and they spit on the ground,” says one resident. “They take up half the bridge – you almost have to go into the road,” says another. But not everyone agrees. “I think we need it. I don’t have any problems with them,” says one resident.
In response to these tensions, Switzerland Tourism has launched a video campaign to be shown on long-haul flights of national airline SWISS. The tone is light-hearted, but the message is clear: to remind people of a few basic rules, such as not monopolising space on public transport, asking before taking photographs of local residents, and favouring local produce.
“Our aim is not to educate, but to promote quality tourism,” Martin Nydegger, director of Switzerland Tourism, told RTS. “We want harmony between visitors and locals. And sometimes visitors who come from distant markets are not exactly familiar with our customs.”
Edited by Samuel Jaberg
The week ahead
At 6pm on Monday a cotton-wool snowman will be set on fire on Zurich’s Sechseläutenplatz. This is the Böögg, the headline-grabbing highlight of the Sechseläuten, a traditional spring holiday in Zurich. Allegedly the quicker the Böögg’s dynamite-packed head explodes, the hotter the summer.
FINMA, the Swiss financial watchdog, publishes its annual report on Tuesday, announcing how many on-site inspections of financial institutions it carried out last year. Other issues it addresses could include cybercrime.
BEA Bern, an exhibition for agriculture, trade and industry and the largest spring fair in Switzerland, opens on Friday and runs until May 3.
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