Unlike Geneva airport, which is located entirely on Swiss soil but still operates a French side, Switzerland’s third major airport – Basel-Mulhouse EuroAirport – is on French territory, but run by the Swiss. Paris now wants to run the show by taxing all revenue, plus imposing its own rights on both French employees and companies. […]
Lake Geneva’s higher education card
A recent article in Le Temps suggests that Patrick Aebischer, president of Lausanne’s prestigious École Polytechnique Fédérale (EPFL), has gone too far with his ambitious plans to expand what is now referred to as the “MIT of Europe”. The 9 February referendum on immigration threatens not only EPFL’s European Union funding, but also access to […]
Aid workers: unsung and unarmed
Fighting the Ebola crisis in Liberia or delivering aid to the Ukraine is not for the faint of heart. Despite the risk of disease, kidnapping and death by beheading, humanitarian workers around the world continue to offer their services in danger zones far from their comfortable homelands. Are they braver than the rest of us, […]
Switzerland as a global sustainability hub
Five hundred people from more than 40 countries met in Lausanne at the annual Business-for-Society Forum to discuss positioning Switzerland as a global sustainability hub. This is not the first time such an idea has been promoted. Variations on this theme have been mooted previously by the government, think tanks and universities alike. What makes […]
Social assistance higher in Suisse romande
BERN The number of people on welfare in Swiss cities is generally higher in Suisse romande than in German-speaking cities, according to a study by Bern University and the Cities Initiative for Social Policy. Lausanne and Bienne/Biel have the greatest percentage of people on welfare among 13 cities surveyed, with increases in five other cities, […]
Your future: “80 is the new 60”
UBS this week released a survey it carried out on age and pensions. Normally pretty dry stuff – summaries of massive data sets – these findings offer interesting insights into Swiss attitudes and give ample food for thought. We know, for example, that the Swiss are living longer; however the survey also tells us that […]
Lausanne to host symposium on high-mountain communities in the Himalayas
Climate change is already deeply changing the way of life of mountain communities, be they in the Alps or the Himalayas. Do we understand what is happening and what can we do? Over 170 million people eke out a modest living at over 3,000 metres in vast and isolated tracts of the Himalayas. A further […]
Property taxes: Is it worth buying in Switzerland?
Ever contemplated buying a property in Switzerland? Reading further might put you off. Providing useful information on the taxation of property in Switzerland is daunting. Given that the country effectively has 26 different systems – one for each canton – it is virtually impossible to say anything on the subject that can be used in […]
Switzerland’s prison population has increased
Switzerland’s prison population has increased by nine percent over the past ten years to 6,599. This is bang on the average rise of prison populations in Europe. The country with the biggest rise was Malta with a door-slamming 49% increase. Estonia, with 3,286 prisoners, enjoyed the largest decrease (39%) in its prison population. The rise […]
Assessment – to grade or not to grade?
Further to recent reforms in the English National curriculum, parents may want to ask about new systems of assessment. There are fundamentally two different schools of measuring a child’s progress and Great Britain may be about to make a leap from one to another. To grade or not to grade, this has been the question […]
