Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
When leaders get to choose when to resign their post, they usually prefer to do so when the last storm has passed and the ship has resumed full speed.
Today, my top boss, Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) President Jean-Michel Cina, announced his resignation. But Cina will also know that the next storm is bound to arrive. The SBC is looking for a successor who can handle bad weather.
Warm greetings from the Conference of the Swiss Abroad in Brunnen on Lake Lucerne
The Swiss asylum system is under less pressure than before. The numbers of asylum applications are declining. But the pressure on Justice Minister Beat Jans remains high because of delinquent asylum seekers. Now Jans has been forced to defend himself.
Research by Blick brings uncomfortable figures to light. According to federal statistics, 80% of asylum seekers from North African countries become criminals during the course of their asylum procedure. They break into cars, steal from shops or sneak into houses. Their chances of asylum are small, but the young men from the Maghreb are responsible for a large part of the delinquency in the entire asylum sector.
In the NZZ, Justice Minister Beat Jans comments on this phenomenon.
“The behaviour of a small minority of asylum seekers harms the asylum system, they abuse the right to asylum,” says Jans. “We have established individual case support and bring criminal offenders to prosecution more quickly,” he says. But legislative adjustments are needed to be able to “get these intensive offenders off the streets more quickly,” he says.
Jans also provides information about his strategy. “We want to strengthen the deterrent effect,” he says of a new preliminary procedure that he wants to establish in the asylum sector. “Those who cannot justify their asylum application and therefore no longer enter the asylum system have no incentive to come to Switzerland.”
Jean-Michel Cina has announced his resignation as President of the SBC, Swissinfo’s parent company. He headed the company for almost a decade. The succession is to be arranged by spring 2027.
The timing of the withdrawal was deliberately chosen, according to the SBC. The change at the top comes at a moment when the strategic cost-savings project “Enavant” is being implemented and the new management has started work. “This also means that the right time has come to put the chairmanship of the SBC Board of Directors in new hands,” says Cina.
The SBC is currently implementing a comprehensive cost-cutting programme with the aim of a “more digital, leaner and more flexible media company”. The Federal Council is reducing the annual licence fee from CHF335 to CHF300 per household. The SBC expects to cut 900 jobs by 2029 to achieve the required cost savings.
During Cina’s presidency, two national votes were held on the future of the SBC. In 2018, the electorate rejected the initiative to abolish the licence fee with around 72% of the votes against the proposal. The so-called “halving initiative” failed in spring 2026 with around 62% of the votes against the proposal.
This summer has been a challenge for Switzerland. This means that the climate change is back as an issue in politics. Swiss President Guy Parmelin speaks of a shock.
Extreme weather has once again followed Parmelin’s presidency. “Now I am president in a year in which there are extreme heat waves and drought. In my last presidential year in 2021, it was the floods,”he said in an interview with SRF.
In the summer of 2026, farmers are fighting drought and fodder shortages. In the cities, people are suffering from record temperatures. Parmelin defended himself against the accusation that the Federal Council has slept through climate change. “We knew that climate change existed. And of course, we have to prepare for future dry spells, which will be even more frequent,” he says.
Parmelin refers to his day job as a winegrower and recalls irrigation measures that were tackled years ago in his home canton, Vaud. “I believe that the shock of the current drought will lead to more irrigation and storage projects being put on the table,” he says.
A former Swiss People’s Party politician emigrated to Cuba more than 20 years ago. Now he is back in Switzerland with his family due to the crisis in Cuba.
In the early 2000s, Mark Kuster was considered a great young hope of the Swiss People’s Party. Acquaintances and the media were all the more amazed when the then president of the Young Swiss People’s Party changed his life plans in 2003 and emigrated to Cuba. He had fallen in love with the country during his vacations. Once there, he founded a children’s charity – and a family.
Now he is back in Winterthur, where the Tages-Anzeiger visited him for a portrait. Kuster reports on untenable living conditions in Cuba, which have deteriorated drastically again after tightened US sanctions. Another motive for the move is his children.
“The quality of the education system has also fallen sharply. As a Swiss father, this is a major reason to enable my children to do an apprenticeship in Switzerland.”
However, Kuster does not really want to gain a foothold in Switzerland. He continues to run his aid organization from afar and dreams of returning to the Caribbean island when the crisis is over. – “if my wife and children still want to”.
Translated from German, sub-edited by Anand Chandrasekhar
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