Switzerland Today

Dear Swiss Abroad,

The cherry blossom season has started early in Switzerland. As nature awakens thanks to the warm March weather, the beautiful, delicate white and pink flowers can be spotted in select locations across the country. Like in Japan, the Swiss cherry blossom season only lasts a few weeks. Check out Instagram if you miss them.

Read on for news and other stories from Switzerland today.

KEYSTONE/KEY

In the news: wolf culls, Swisscom-Vodafone Italia, more migration money and ETH Zurich/EPFL.

• Around a third of Swiss people are in favour of preventive wolf culls, while 46% say they are against them, a survey shows.
• The Swiss telecoms company Swisscom said on Friday it will buy Vodafone Italia for €8 billion and merge the business with its Italian subsidiary Fastweb.
• The federal government needs more money this year than it had originally budgeted. It has submittedExternal link to parliament 11 additional credit requests for CHF604 million. Over CHF255 million is for federal asylum centres.
• The government has given the go-aheadExternal link for Switzerland to join a “gas solidarity” agreement with Germany and Italy. The three countries have agreed to assist each other in the event of a gas supply emergency.
• The number of students at Switzerland’s two federal institutes of technology, ETH Zurich and EPFL, rose by 3.6% last year, the ETH Board announcedExternal link. The proportion of women has also increased. Foreigners represent 50.5% of students. At the end of January, EPFL announced it was considering introducing an admission limit from 2025 for students applying with a foreign high school diploma.

KEYSTONE/© KEYSTONE / ENNIO LEANZA

Future of Patrouille Suisse remains uncertain.

The Patrouille Suisse air display team, which was founded in 1964, faces an uncertain future. Due to financial reasons, the defence ministry wants to stop operating the F5 Tiger jets currently used by the team at the end of 2027.

“We must concentrate our finances,” Swiss Air Force Commander Peter Merz told German-speaking public radioExternal link, SRF. He said the air force spending was being prioritised on new systems due to the current financial situation. Operating the Tigers costs around CHF40 million a year and additional investments of several million francs would be necessary if they are used for longer. 

Merz said this would mean the end of the Patrouille Suisse squadron in its current form. “Patrouille Suisse will no longer be able to fly on jet aircraft if the Tiger is gone,” he confirmed. The display team might be able to continue if they use existing Pilatus PC-7 propeller-driven training planes.

Ultimately, the decision about the F-5 Tigers remains with parliament, which has criticised earlier attempts to clip the display team’s wings.

In recent years the government sought to decommission half of the 53 F5-Tigers in service. But parliamentarians vetoed this move in 2022.  

The Tiger jets have been in service in Switzerland since 1978. Their production was discontinued in 1989 following the delivery of the 3,806th aircraft after more than 30 years. 

During the parliamentary debate two years ago, Swiss Defence Minister Viola Amherd said the Tigers were obsolete. “They don’t stand a chance in a dogfight,” she argued at the time. But centre-right politicians blocked the government, saying it was necessary to wait until a squadron of F-35A jets was operational before putting the Tigers away in hangars.

The Tete Blanche snow field where five bodies were found, centre, below the Dent d’Herens mountain, left, in the Swiss Alps, March 11, 2024. KEYSTONE/© KEYSTONE / KANTONSPOLIZEI WALLIS

Search called off for missing female skier in Swiss mountain tragedy.

A search for the final missing member of a group of six skiers trapped last weekend by bad weather on a mountain in southern Switzerland has been called off, police said on Thursday.

A search party had already recovered the bodies of five of the people last Sunday. They had been caught in severe weather on the 3,710-metre Tete Blanche mountain on Saturday on the Zermatt-Arolla path in canton Valais. All five were members of the same Valais family, aged 21, 27, 30, 44 and 58.

The group had set off from Zermatt on Saturday morning to reach Arolla the same day but never arrived at their destination. A worried family member waiting for them had alerted the emergency services.

Helicopters and rescue teams have been combing the area to find the sixth person, a 28-year-old woman, who police said had originally put in an emergency call to say the group were in trouble.

“After consulting with her family, the search has now been stopped,” police said in a statement.

The investigators believe the most likely hypothesis is that she fell into a crevasse as her avalanche beacon has not been found.

“The West doesn’t need Russia, we need Russia!” A billboard prior to the upcoming presidential election in Russia. AP Photo

Russian elections and the Putin system.

We leave our Swiss Abroad and global readers with an invitation to join our latest debate. While there is little point in making bets on the outcome of Russia’s upcoming elections, we would love your take on Vladimir Putin. Have your say here!