Switzerland

Karin Keller-Sutter should take a trip to Delaware

by Toni Brunner*

(18 June 2021) It was during the last financial crisis in 2008/2009. The USA was looking for money and new sources of income and so the then US President Barack Obama attacked banking secrecy and with it Switzerland.

Our Federal Councillor for Eastern Switzerland, Hans-Rudolf Merz, said at the time: “You will have a tough time on our banking secrecy but you will not succeed!" In the summer of 2009, the big bank UBS delivered thousands of client data to the USA, and banking secrecy was eliminated.

Maintaining the spirit of dialogue

Putin-Biden summit in Geneva

by Guy Mettan, independent journalist, Geneva

(14 June 2021) 36 years ago, on 19 November 1985, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Geneva for a summit that made Cold War history. I remember it like it was yesterday: it was my 29th birthday and I have kept my badge as an accredited journalist to this day.

Why did the EU-Switzerland Framework Agreement fail?

by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Carl Baudenbacher*

(8 June 2021) On 26 May 2021, the Federal Council, Switzerland’s seven-member government, broke off the seven-year negotiations between the EU and Switzerland on the conclusion of an Institutional Framework Agreement (“InstA”). Swiss friends of the InstA had tried to prevent this until the end, in part with very questionable means.

Referendum of 13 June 2021

"The primary goal of agriculture is to provide sufficient and optimal food"

by Anne Challandes*

(21 May 2021) We, the Swiss farming families, do not want to have residues in the water either. Numerous measures are already in force and more are planned to ensure this.

The new regulations adopted by Parliament this spring set ambitious targets that make them the strictest regulation in Europe and a more appropriate response than the two initiatives that will be voted on in June.

Federal referendum of 13 June 2021

Thoughts on the two agricultural initiatives

by Esther and Felix Bürge

(21 May 2021) The pressure on our farmers has been increasing for some time. Environmental and animal welfare requirements are constantly being adjusted and raised. At the same time, however, production prices are being pushed down and farmers are receiving less and less pay for their valuable work of providing the population with healthy food.

Book review

"Under Swiss protection"

How Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz saved 50,000 lives

by Thomas Scherr

(25 May 2021) The example of Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz shows that one person can make a huge difference. Amid the atrocities and callousness of wartime Europe, this man risked his life to save thousands of Jews from certain death.