Switzerland Today

Hello from Bern,

Here are the latest news and updates from Switzerland on Friday.

Keystone / Barbara Gindl

In the news: While its German-speaking neighbours tighten Covid measures, Switzerland holds its course.

• Austria said today it would impose a full lockdown from next Monday due to rocketing Covid cases; it also plans a national vaccination obligation as of next February. Germany is also tightening the screw, restricting much of public life to vaccinated or recovered (not merely tested). Switzerland, as we reported yesterday, is reluctant to impose new measures: while case numbers are rising sharply, the situation in hospitals remains stable, officials say.
• Swiss President Guy Parmelin has agreed a declaration of intent to boost cooperation with the United States on vocational education and training. The agreement, signed in Washington on Thursday, is valid for three years and signals “intensifying knowledge exchange between education stakeholders active in the public and private sectors” in both countries.
• The Swiss definition of a refugee is “very restrictive” and excludes certain groups to their detriment, the (UNHCR) said today. This is particularly the case for those fleeing civil war, who are granted asylum only if they “can prove that they are individually persecuted”, something “particularly difficult” to do in a context of civil war. Overall, the UN agency said Switzerland generally respects the terms of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Keystone / Peter Schneider

Swiss-EU relations: Cassis comments round out a week of sometimes conflicting communications.

The latest tit, or tat, in the tit for tat spat between the EU and Switzerland came in the form of an interview with Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis today in Tamedia newspapersExternal link. Cassis was giving his reaction to a meeting with his EU counterpart Maroš Šefčovič in Brussels on Monday – the first high-level get-together since the end of negotiations on a framework agreement in May. His thoughts also come a couple of days after an interview with Šefčovič where the EU Commissioner gave his take on affairs. Are the sparring lovers any closer to reconciliation?

Not quite: by the sound of it, Cassis and Šefčovič weren’t in the same room on Monday, let alone on the same wavelength. According to the Šefčovič’s conclusions, the problems on the table are still the same: the EU doesn’t want to give Switzerland access to its market unless it plays by the common rules, i.e. by adapting state aid practices, by being more willing to automatically take on new EU laws, and by agreeing to the legal authority of a joint dispute mechanism body. To solve these problems, Šefčovič says a roadmap is to be ready by the time the pair meet again, at the World Economic Forum in January. And all is to be clear: “the EU doesn’t want any more surprises”, he said.

But according to Cassis’ conclusions today, roadmaps and deadlines are beside the point! The point for the foreign minister is that the EU and Switzerland are currently engaged in high-level political negotiations, in order to find common ground and common agreement in the interest of Europe as a whole… The point of dropping the framework accord earlier this year was to get away from procedural negotiations and reorient things towards political dialogue, Cassis says. As for the January deadline for a roadmap, this was not part of the meeting, says Cassis, who added that “Switzerland will not be pressured by Brussels”. On the plus side, he did say that the pair had a “good and open discussion”…

© Keystone / Gaetan Bally

The Swiss are working less and less, statistics show: or are they working harder and harder?

New numbers publishedExternal link by the Federal Statistical Office suggest the Swiss are turning into a bunch of layabouts. Not only did the pandemic year of 2020 lead to a big drop in hours worked, the trend over the past decade is also downwards: hours fell by 7.2% from 2010-2020. That’s 14 fewer days on average! What’s going on in the land of Calvin? A pandemic of decadence? A plague of laziness? Or are people more productive, working harder in a shorter time, as a trade unionist suggested to RTSExternal link? One place to find answers is a feature we published last year, outlining some Swiss-specific factors: e.g. the large number of part-time employees in the workforce, and the overall high level of workforce participation. All things considered, the article says, the only European country that works more than Switzerland is Iceland. And even there, as SRF reportsExternal link, things are changing; they want to introduce a four-day working week. Decadence!

Keystone / Anthony Anex

“Winter in Sokcho”: a young Swiss-based author has won a prestigious National Book Award in the US.

Elisa Shua Dusapin, who lives in Porrentruy (western Switzerland), has won one of the most prestigious English-language literature prizes, Le Temps reportsExternal link. Her novel “Hiver à Sokcho” (“Winter in Sokcho”), published in French in 2016, won the US National Book Award for the category “translated literature”, after it was turned into (American) English by Aneesa Abbas Higgins. The novel is set in a seaside town near the border between North and South Korea, and explores themes of identity and cultural clash. Shua Dusapin, who spent part of her youth in Seoul and whose mother is Korean, was just 24 when the book was published. She told Le Temps the latest award is a “magnificent distinction that gives [her] confidence for new projects”. SWI swissinfo profiled her in 2018 (in French and German).