Switzerland Today

Dear Swiss Abroad,

Although the overall number of new asylum-seekers seeking refuge in Switzerland is falling, municipalities are under strong pressure to take in migrants. The Swiss Association of Municipalities has warned of an impending collapse of the asylum system in the Sunday press.

In today’s briefing, we also discuss the protection of Swiss wages, which has been a stumbling block in talks on the bilateral agreements between Switzerland and the European Union. Finally, we look at the Swiss authorities’ new food pyramid, which has been praised by environmental groups.

Happy reading!

Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi

“The asylum system is in danger of collapsing,” warned Claudia Kratochvil, the new director of the Swiss Association of Municipalities, in the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper. Many municipalities no longer know where to house asylum seekers, she declared.

“The use of underground civil protection shelters to house asylum-seekers is no longer the exception, but common practice,” Kratochvil told the Sunday newspaper. A recent survey shows that 31% of municipalities cite the care of asylum-seekers as one of their main problems, she said.

“The public’s acceptance of asylum seekers is declining, and the number of host families available has fallen sharply,” added Kratochvil. Another factor exacerbating the situation is the shortage of staff. “It’s very difficult to find qualified people to look after refugees,” lamented the director.

She also sees the savings planned by the Federal Council as a problem. She is particularly critical of the CHF500-million-a-year ($544 million) cut to the integration package. “It must be said quite clearly: this is unmanageable. The reduction will have a massive impact on the budgets of communes and cantons,” she said.

• Read Claudia Kratochvil’s interviewExternal link in NZZ am Sonntag (German / behind paywall)

Keystone / Peter Schneider

“We are also committed to protecting wages,” Roland Müller, director of the Swiss Employers’ Association (in photo above), told the CH Media newspaper group. He has put forward measures to prevent wage dumping in Switzerland with regards to the new EU treaties.

In the interview, Müller cited work bans for companies that demonstrably do not adhere to Swiss rules. “A freeze on payments could be applied so that clients in Switzerland do not pay the bills of EU companies that practice wage dumping in Switzerland,” he said. Miller also talked about strengthening the Bau-Card instrument, which is an accreditation for companies in the construction industry that proves that they adhere to all the rules

However, unions and employers are finding it difficult to agree on the measures to be introduced to protect Swiss wages. “The unions are mixing things up and making demands that have no direct bearing on the issue,” said Müller. However, he assumes that solutions can be found in many areas.

The unions have focused their opposition to the recent Swiss-EU agreements on the regulation of expense claims. However, this only affects 0.3% of jobs in Switzerland, 24heures and Tribune de Genève calculated on Monday. By 2023, fewer than 17,000 posted workers to Switzerland would have been affected by the regulations, according to the newspapers. But Pierre-Yves Maillard, president of the Swiss Trade Union Federation, warns that if wage dumping is permitted, the situation “will explode”.

• Read the interview with Roland MüllerExternal link in the Aargauerzeitung (in German / paywall) and report in 24heuresExternal link (paywall).

Keystone-SDA

Talks on Iran’s nuclear programme took place in Geneva on Monday between Iranian, French, German and British diplomats. This was the last meeting before Donald Trump returns to the White House on January 20.

The Geneva meeting comes at a time when the West is especially worried about Iran’s nuclear programme. Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich uranium to 60%, close to the 90% needed to make an nuclear weapon. The country defends its right to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes, to produce energy, and denies that it wants to acquire nuclear weapons, something that Western countries strongly doubt.

In early December, France, Germany and the UK sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council expressing their “grave concern”. The three countries urged the Islamic Republic “to put an immediate end to its nuclear escalation”. They also raised the possibility of using the mechanism for reimposing sanctions against Iran “to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons”.

Today’s gathering in Geneva is also particularly important, as it comes a week before Trump returns to Washington. Tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme rose sharply during his first presidency, when the United States withdrew from the 2015 agreement that offered Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for limiting its nuclear ambitions.

• Read the articleExternal link by Swiss public radio, RTS.

sge-ssn.ch, blv.admin.ch / 2024

Environmental organisations have analysed the impact of the government’s new nutritional recommendations, updated last year, which consider criteria related not only to health but also to the environment. Their conclusions? After initially being critical, they are now cautiously supportive.

The government’s new food pyramid can make a significant contribution to achieving Switzerland’s climate targets, said a report by Greenpeace and the WWF. The Federal Council has set itself the target of reducing the carbon footprint of food by 25% by 2030 compared with 2020, and by at least two-thirds by 2050, the organisations said.

Two scenarios have been considered in the Swiss nutritional recommendations, as there is considerable room for manoeuvre. For meat, for example, the recommended amount is 0-360 grams per week. The calculations show that a diet in line with the minimum variant of the nutritional recommendations would make a significant contribution to an environmentally-friendly diet and to the government’s climate objectives.

Individuals and households are not the only ones involved in reducing the impact of food. Political authorities and economic players also bear a responsibility, say the two NGOs. Change requires concrete measures on the part of each one of them. These include removing the wrong incentives currently in place in politics, retail and catering, which encourage behaviour that runs counter to sustainable, healthy eating. This requires binding agreements, the NGOs say.

• Read the news story via Keystone-SDA.

Keystone / Urs Flueeler

Picture of the day

In Brunnen in canton Schwyz, so-called Nuessler paraded through the town in traditional costumes and masks which are based on those worn by characters in Venice’s Commedia dell’arte. The event marks the opening of the Schwyz carnival season.

Adapted from French by Simon Bradley