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Swiss Politics

Palestinian prisoners get a new start in life

This content was published on Feb 7, 2005 The Abu Djihad training centre, which was visited last week by the Swiss foreign minister, helps to integrate former inmates back into civilian life. On Thursday the Israeli cabinet agreed to release around 900 prisoners as a gesture of goodwill ahead of Tuesday’s Middle East peace summit in Egypt. The announcement coincided with the arrival…

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Couchepin calls for a liberal culture policy

This content was published on Feb 5, 2005 His remarks, made during a meeting in Zurich on Saturday, come shortly before parliament is due to debate a law on the promotion of culture. At the meeting, organised by Couchepin’s centre-right Radical Party but also attended by the centre-left Social Democrats and figures from the arts world, the minister said that political influence on…

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Christian Democrats support closer EU ties

This content was published on Feb 5, 2005 The party also gave its support to the extension of the Swiss labour market to the ten new EU member states at a meeting in Auvernier near Neuchâtel on Saturday. The Christian Democrats, one of Switzerland’s four main political parties, voted by 176 to zero in favour of the Schengen/Dublin accord on cross-border crime and…

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Palestinian leader praises Swiss solidarity

This content was published on Feb 3, 2005 His comments came after talks in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, who is on a week-long visit to the Middle East. Speaking at a press conference, Abbas said the pair had discussed the ongoing peace negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The Palestinian president is due to…

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Swiss Politics

Geneva rallies support for illegal workers

This content was published on Feb 2, 2005 The idea has the support of some social and migrants’ organisations, but the Federal Migration Office and some cantons in German-speaking Switzerland are more sceptical. Geneva estimates that around 5,000 household employees, mainly women, work in the canton without being officially registered. It has called on the government to legalise these workers, who are mostly…

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No solution reached in Swiss-EU funding row

This content was published on Feb 1, 2005 The announcement came after Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey held talks with Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU commissioner for external relations. Switzerland, which is not a member of the 25-nation bloc, has offered to contribute SFr1 billion ($840 million) at a rate of SFr200 million a year to the EU’s Cohesion Fund over the next five…

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Confessions of a Davos virgin

This content was published on Jan 31, 2005 I arrived in Davos expecting a flood of stories about the 2005 corporate agenda – but hard-nosed business angles were few and far between. Those sessions that focused on such issues were totally upstaged by the “new agenda” of combating poverty, Aids and climate change. Indeed, with political and business leaders all vying to upstage…

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Swiss Politics

Swiss hail “energy” of Porto Alegre

This content was published on Jan 31, 2005 The Forum, which wrapped up on Monday, is set to move away from Brazil next year in search of new audiences. “My feeling is the same as last year: this Forum produces lots of energy,” parliamentarian Liliane Maury Pasquier told swissinfo. “And what we have experienced here is very useful back in Switzerland for defending…

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Swiss Politics

Funding row taints Swiss-EU relations

This content was published on Jan 31, 2005 Both sides are at loggerheads over the wording of an accord and which countries should benefit from the SFr1 billion ($840 million) pledged by the Swiss. The Swiss foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, will attempt to negotiate a deal with the European Commission on Tuesday. Switzerland, which is not a member of the 25-nation bloc, has…

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Swiss Politics

Asylum seekers to keep working in Zurich

This content was published on Jan 30, 2005 This is due to the city council deciding to extend a revolutionary pilot project until the end of this year, which was the first of its kind in Switzerland when introduced in 2003. The head of the city’s social affairs department, Monika Stocker, said the council had thrown its entire weight behind the scheme. “We…

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