Employees Switzerland, a union organisation representing Swiss workers, is resigned to the idea of raising the retirement age, according to Swiss broadcaster RTS. Speaking to the newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, Stefan Studer, director of the association, said raising the retirement age is inevitable because of the financial difficulties facing Switzerland’s state pension system, known as […]
More than 40 serious threats against Swiss politicians and judges in 2018
In 2018, 669 threats against politicians, judges and other public servants were reported to Swiss police, according to RTS. In 43 serious cases, Swiss police came to protect the threatened individual from danger. Victims of serious threats included parliamentarians (National Councillors), members of cabinet (Federal Councillors) and judges. The threats were mainly associated with refugees […]
Call to offer Assange asylum in Switzerland
A group of Swiss lawyers have asked the Federal Council, Switzerland’s executive, to grant Julian Assange asylum, according to the newspaper Tribune de Genève. The 22 lawyers, mostly from Zurich, justify their request on the grounds of promoting civil society, human rights and press freedom. Among the lawyers are Marcel Bosonnet, Philip Stolkin and Bernard […]
Switzerland slides one place in 2019 press freedom ranking
In 2019, Switzerland lost one place slipping from 5th to 6th place out of 180, according to the latest world ranking of press freedom by the organisation Reporters Without Borders. The change was largely driven by the stronger performance of Denmark, which moved up into 5th place. According to the report, the press in Switzerland […]
60% of Swiss in favour of framework agreement with the EU, according to latest survey
In a recently published survey done by gfs.bern, 60% were in favour the institutional agreement between Switzerland and the EU. The most popular reason for supporting the agreement is the economic certainty voters think it would bring. However, support for the agreement was fairly luke warm. Only 17% were strongly in favour of it compared […]
Income inequality declines in Switzerland
In 2016, before the effects of taxes and welfare, the highest earning 20% of Swiss households made on average 40.8 times what an average household in the bottom 20 percent made, an inequality measure known as the S80/S20. However, after taxes and welfare, including low income support, health insurance subsidies, pensions and disability benefits, the […]
Million franc salaries cause friction in Bern
Switzerland’s government recently voted for a ceiling on the salaries of those managing public companies such as Swisscom, Swiss Post, Skyguide and Swiss Rail. In response, the board of Swiss Rail wrote to the Federal Council requesting it to soften its position. From 2020, the company wants to pay its nine senior managers CHF 5.89 […]
Facebook rejects most information requests from Swiss authorities
Over the first three months of 2018 Swiss authorities made 80 requests for Facebook user data, however two thirds of them were ignored, according to the newspaper SonntagsBlick as reported in 20 Minutes. When the requests were urgent the response rate rose to two thirds of requests. Reto Nause, who is responsible for security in […]
Swiss parliamentarians paid to lobby. But who is paying who?
A recently published study by the organisation Transparency International Switzerland shows the scale of lobbying in Swiss politics. Based on existing records, there are 2,000 relevant links between parliamentarians and outside interests with close to 1,700 organisations represented in parliament. An average member of Switzerland’s parliament has between seven and nine outside mandates. While the […]
Swiss clocks move forward one hour this Sunday
Early on Sunday 31 March 2019 – at 2am to be precise – Swiss clocks will move forward one hour. This means you will miss one hour of sleep and it will be darker when you get up. On the plus side, it will be lighter for longer in the evenings. Daylight savings likely to […]
