Swiss parliamentarians could soon be required to show any other nationalities they hold on the official parliamentary website. The idea was supported by 15 members of a 22-member parliamentary commission looking at it, according to RTS. The initiative was launched by Swiss People’s Party (UDC/SVP) member Marco Chiesa and has stated aim of improving transparency. […]
Vote against laws restricting religious clothing in public office divides Geneva
In Switzerland, religion is a cantonal matter. Cantons decide on the relationship between religion and politics. This has created a patchwork of different systems across Switzerland. In April 2018, the government of Geneva introduced new rules designed to further protect religious freedom and preserve religious neutrality in its public institutions, known as laïcité or secularity laws. Laïcité […]
Half of Swiss happy with their finances
A recent survey suggests that half of Swiss residents are satisfied with their financial situation while 6% said they have trouble making ends meet. In addition, 28% expect their finances to improve in 2019, although fewer women (25%) than men (33%) expect this. 18% expect their finances to worsen and 54% expect no change. Views […]
Switzerland scores well on youth job market conditions but suffers from skills mismatch
A recent report places Switzerland second in a ranking of 33 european countries on conditions in the youth labour market in 2016 – youth are those between 15 and 24. Switzerland’s overall score of 5.67 out of 7.00 is close to Denmark’s 5.72. Switzerland’s highest scores are for employment rate (6.01) and working conditions (5.77), […]
Swiss organic farm output doubles
Between 1999 and 2017 the amount of organic food produced on Swiss farms more than doubled. In 1999, 5.3% of Switzerland’s farm output was organic. By 2017 this figure had risen to 11.7%. In 1999, Swiss farms produced CHF 562 million worth of organic food. In 2017, they produced CHF 1.2 billion. Consumers are spending […]
Internal EU letter says grant no concessions to Switzerland
An internal EU commission letter says that without a framework agreement Swiss-EU agreements granting access to the EU single market will only be changed if it is in the EU’s interest, according to the newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) and the Keystone-SDA news agency. The letter dated 10 January 2019 and signed by Martin Selmayr, […]
CERN unveils plan for new super-sized collider
Over the next two years the possibility of a new particle collider will be discussed, according to a recent press release from CERN. The new particle accelerator would dwarf the existing one. 100km in circumference, it would form an underground circle containing an area more than three times the size of the canton of Geneva, […]
Swiss unemployment lowest in 10 years
Switzerland’s unemployment rate, now 2.6%, hasn’t been so low for 10 years, according to the latest figures from Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). A weakening of the Swiss franc helped boost Switzerland’s economic growth, creating more jobs. The unemployment rate among young workers (15-24) dropped 0.7% to 2.4% as did unemployment among the […]
Geneva continues to refuse school places to cross-border workers
Last year the courts invalidated the canton’s refusal to offer school places to children living in France. According to the newspaper Tribune de Genève, the canton continues to refuse these children places in its schools. In 2016, around 1,500 children living in France were going to school in Geneva. In 2017, things changed. 143 of […]
Swiss democracy continues to suffer from low participation
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2018 Democracy Index classified only 20 out of 165 countries as having fully functioning democracies in 2018. 14 were in Europe. Globally, democracy remained stable in 2018 according to the report. Only 4.5% of the world’s population (12% of countries) lives in a fully functioning democracy. Overall, the ranking shows a […]
