Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
The chances are high that where you live, the name ‘Alain Berset’ is a completely unknown one. In Switzerland, of course, the situation is different. Today’s briefing brings an update on the latest affair involving the health minister: but first, the rest of Thursday’s news and updates.
In the news: Less money for the army, more for startups.
- The government’s provisional 2024 budget plans foresee a smaller than expected boost in military spending. In the context of the war in Ukraine, parliament voted last summer to boost army spending from CHF5.6 billion to CHF7 billion by 2030; now the government wants to cut this expansion by up to CHF800 million a year.
- Swiss venture capital funding for startups quadrupled to CHF4 billion between 2017 and 2022, a report said today. The main beneficiaries of the funding last year were ICT start-ups and cleantech innovators. The largest single investment was the CHF600 million pumped into Climeworks, which operates a carbon capture and storage plant in Iceland.
- Zurich researchers have shown the extent to which measures taken in Switzerland at the start of the pandemic in 2020 slowed the spread of the virus. Border closures, lockdowns, and contact tracing were particularly effective in stemming infections, researchers wrote. The study was one of the biggest in the world for the 2020 period of the pandemic.
Berset and the media: too much information?
Berset, Berset, Berset, Berset, Berset: as children know, if you say a word often enough it starts to lose its meaning. If the Swiss media says Alain Berset’s name often enough, will his problems also blur out of significance? Since the latest scandal involving the Health Minister broke a fortnight ago – involving alleged leaks from his office to the Ringier media group about Covid policy – “Berset” is again the word of the moment. Just like in the good old days of the pandemic, it’s everywhere from newspaper columns to chats at the coffee machine; today Berset was even cracking jokes in Geneva about chimpanzees.
The funny thing is that Berset doesn’t even have to say much anymore to get attention. On the Ringier affair, in fact, he’s saying almost nothing. While he apparently told ministerial colleagues yesterday that he didn’t know about the leaks, he later refused to say the same thing in public. At a press conference he seemed bemused by the amassed journalists, and in a later interview on RTS television, he was argumentative: “you seem to think it’s the role of the media to conduct a trial”, he told presenter Alexis Favre. Rather, he said, the “institutions” will clarify things – i.e. the various ongoing legal inquiries.
Favre didn’t look impressed. And so Berset is back in a bind: accused of giving too much information to hungry journalists during the pandemic, he’s now accused of not giving them enough. It’s like when he used to announce tougher Covid rules one week, and journalists said “are you sure that’s necessary?”, and when he would announce an easing of rules the next week, they said, “are you sure that’s safe?” Poor Berset! Is it the beginning of the end of the love affair with the media? If it is, then the media itself, despite its complaining, can’t claim not to have had a good time.
Fake news! Trump back in the Oval Office.
Swiss citizens across the country almost choked on their cornflakes this morning when the 8am SRF radio news announced that “US President Donald Trump” had had his accounts on Facebook and Twitter restored. The embarrassed newsreader quickly corrected himself, but the damage was already done; our innermost fears and fantasies had found voice. Trump left power three years ago but has never actually gone away – he’s just been living in our heads, hanging on to his previous job title, poking us every now and then, waiting to jump out again in 2024. If this turns out to be the case, you heard it on Swiss radio first.
Hand in glove: Swiss send equipment to Ukraine.
For a country sometimes accused of hiding self-interest behind its shiny neutrality, Swiss public communications can be a bit awkward. Late last year, under pressure from Germany to allow it to re-export Swiss-made ammunition to help Ukraine, Bern politely declined, citing neutrality rules, before announcing it would send a fire engine to Kyiv. Today, during a week in which global attention was focussed on the historic decision of Germany and the US to send attack tanks to Ukraine, the Swiss announced they were sending – gloves, socks, and blankets. Welcome and vital stuff, but they could have waited a week before announcing it.
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