The Week in Switzerland

Dear Swiss Abroad,
 
Welcome to our selection of some of the biggest stories in Switzerland over the past seven days.

This week's parliamentary session has been dominated by political decisions and debates. Many of these debates are still far from over, but they already give an idea of how Switzerland could evolve over the next few years. The Switzerland of tomorrow will be the main theme of this week's selection.

Happy reading!

THE BIG STORIES OF THE WEEK

Keystone/Anthony Anex

The conflict in Ukraine has prompted several Western countries to increase the resources available to their armed forces. Although Switzerland is traditionally neutral, it has not escaped this trend.

The army budget has been the subject of long and fairly standard arguments in the House of Representatives between the political right and the left. In short, the right argued that the current context required an additional financial effort, while the left felt that money for archaic military systems could be put to better use in other areas.

In the end, it was the position defended by the right-wing majority in Parliament that prevailed. On Thursday, the House of Representatives agreed to allocate the additional resources requested by the defence ministry. The key points of the bill are commitment credits totalling CHF 4.9 billion for the procurement of military equipment and an increase in the spending ceiling for the years 2025 to 2028.

It should be noted that the money is not yet in the bag. It still has to be discussed in the Senate during the winter parliamentary session.

• ArticleExternal link on the various aspects of the military budget.
• A debateExternal link on the military spending.

Keystone/Peter Schneider

Continuing with Parliament, a small tax revolution may be underway. The House of Representatives has begun debating a revision of the taxation of married couples. The aim is to put an end to unequal treatment of married couples by moving to individual taxation for everyone, whether married or single.

Currently, married couples are taxed on the basis of their combined income. As tax is progressive, this solution puts married couples at a disadvantage. To take a concrete example, the tax bill is higher for two spouses declaring a joint income of CHF 100,000 than for two single people each declaring an individual income of CHF 50,000.

All the parties in the House of Representatives are prepared to put an end to this inequality, but differ on how to go about it. For example, individual taxation, which the government is proposing as a solution, has not won over the parties of the centre and the conservative right. In their view, this solution would certainly improve the situation for married couples where both spouses work, but would create a new inequality for more traditional couples, where one of the spouses looks after the home. To take the previous example, with individual taxation, a couple where only one member earns CHF 100,000 would be taxed more heavily than a couple where both spouses earn CHF 50,000.

This issue is a long-standing one in Swiss politics. To date, no consensus has ever been reached on a solution. And the debates in the House of Representatives show that the matter is likely to drag on a little longer. The back and forth has taken so long – with more than 60 speeches – that House of Representatives has not yet had time to vote on the introduction of the subject. Debates will resume next Wednesday.

• A résuméExternal link of the debates in the House of Representatives (paywall).

Keystone/Ennio Leanza

The Switzerland of tomorrow will also be a more populous Switzerland. For some time now, people have been predicting a Switzerland of nine million people. Well, that time has finally come, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) announced on Thursday.

The symbolic nine million mark had already been reached in the summer of 2023. But at that time, the statistics included people living in the country on a temporary basis. This time, it concerns the population living in Switzerland on a permanent basis. According to the FSO, the country had 9,002,763 permanent residents at the time of the count on June 30, 2024.

A glance at the demographic curve shows that the increase is exponential. The increase is mainly due to immigration. Foreigners now account for 27.1% of the Swiss population.

• The latest demographic statisticsExternal link summarised.

Keystone/Valentin Flauraud

Will the Switzerland of tomorrow be a media desert? It’s hard to say, but what is certain is that for the media, the bad news has continued to roll in over the last few days.

Having already announced major job cuts at the end of August, the Tamedia press group announced this week that it would be merging its editorial teams. In French-speaking Switzerland, the editorial teams of the dailies 24 heures, Tribune de Genève and Le Matin dimanche will be merged, while Femina magazine will become a monthly publication.

The consolidation measures also affect German-speaking Switzerland. The editorial teams of the Zurich regional newspapers Landbote, Zürichsee-Zeitung and Zürcher Unterländer, as well as the SonntagsZeitung team, will be integrated into the Zurich editorial team.

The news is not much better on the public service side. Swiss Radio and Television RTS has announced that it will cut around 55 jobs by 2025 as part of a CHF10 million cost-cutting plan related to the loss of compensatory financing for the reduction in the reimbursement of the licence fee and lower advertising revenues. It’s Italian counterpart RSI will have to cut 15 jobs and save CHF5 million next year.

• Details about the restructuration of TamediaExternal link.
• Information on job cuts in RTSExternal link.
• Information on job cuts in RSIExternal link.

Ti-Press

It may have seemed like a bad memory, but the coronavirus is still very much with us in Switzerland. On Monday, the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) renewed its call for vigilance against Covid-19, particularly for at-risk groups: people aged 65 and over, pregnant women, people with Down’s syndrome and adults aged 16 and over with a serious medical history.

The recommendation to be vaccinated against flu is generally well followed by at-risk groups. By contrast, vaccination against Covid has not yet become second nature. And yet, last winter, Covid caused more hospitalisations and deaths than the flu.

The FOPH reminds us that vulnerable people should be vaccinated against Covid every six months. The vaccination is reimbursed by health insurance for people at risk, and can be administered in pharmacies or doctors’ surgeries from October.

• New campaign for vaccination against Covid-19External link.

QUIRKY SWITZERLAND

You’ve probably already heard of the Nobel Prize. But chances are you are much less familiar with the Ig-Nobels. These prizes are awarded for the most ‘unlikely’ scientific research.

This year’s Ig-Nobel for Medicine went to a Swiss researcher who was part of a team that ‘demonstrated that fake drugs that cause painful side effects are more effective than fake drugs that do not cause painful side effects’. The title may make you smile, but the content of the study is very serious.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

Keystone

One of Switzerland’s ice hockey legends is no more. Paul-André Cadieux died this week at the age of 77. A naturalised Swiss-Canadian, he played for Bern and coached Fribourg-Gottéron.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Keystone/Jean-Christophe Bott

Politics will take the lion’s share of the news agenda in the week ahead.

With the autumn national referendums are taking place this Sunday, of course. Two issues are on the agenda: the revision of the Occupational Pensions Act and a popular initiative calling for better protection of biodiversity. You can of course follow the results and analyses on swissinfo.ch.

Monday will mark the third and final week of the autumn parliamentary session. Here, too, you can read about the main decisions in our selection of the day’s news.