The cartoon of the week is a new series at swissinfo.ch. Cartoonist Marina Lutz has worked with different Swiss media as a caricaturist, including the Nebelspalter satirical magazine. Lutz has won several awards for her work, notably during the Fumetto inteational cartoon festival.

Click through to see the different images.

Links

(swissinfo.ch)

The fourth industrial revolution – the digitalisation of the economy – is set to radically transform or render obsolete half of all jobs in industrialised countries. As a result, Switzerland’s tertiary sector has been shedding jobs for 15 years.

After mechanisation, electrisation and automation, digitalisation is the next major advanced technology to revolutionise the world of work. A study by Oxford University economists Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osboe found that in advanced economies, some 40% to 50% of jobs will either be transformed or disappear altogether. The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts that two thirds of children starting primary school today will work in professions which currently do not exist.

The phenomenon is not specific to Switzerland. The trend is observed in all the industrialised countries. The graphic below illustrates the rise in Europe of jobs considered highly qualified and technical, to the detriment of agriculture, industry and jobs that are medium- or low-skilled.

The disappearance of numerous jobs as a result of automation – for example cashier, translator, or ticket vendor – is a key argument put forward by supporters of the initiative for an unconditional basic income, which will be put to a popular vote on June 5. Proponents of the initiative point to a report presented at the most recent WEF in Davos which says 7.1 million jobs around the world could disappear over the next five years, two thirds of them in the administrative sector.

So-called intermediation jobs (banker, insurer, real estate agent, etc.) could also be heavily impacted by this trend. But despite the emergence of ‘fin tech’ (financial technology) and robotised advisors that automatise fortune management, the WEF report predicts an increase in jobs in finance, as well as in other key sectors such as IT, engineering and management.

While some people welcome a digital (r)evolution that will increase productivity and facilitate the lives of consumers, others, like anthropologist David Graeber from the London School of Economics, view the mutation of the workforce more critically.

In a scathing discussion paper on what he terms “bullshit jobs”, Graeber argues that a growing number of often highly qualified people are employed in useless or meaningless roles in human resources, management, law, quality assurance, finance, communications, or advisory positions; it is in these sectors that Graeber observes an inflation of “bullshit jobs”. Paradoxically, these are better remunerated than occupations which Graeber qualifies as really useful, such as nurses, teachers, garbage collectors, mechanics, or farmers.

And there is another trend which should not be underestimated: the marked increase in jobs in the health and social services sectors (+354,000). This is mainly due to the ageing of the population, the ever-increasing demand for health services in general, and the demand for childcare outside of the family. A significant consequence of this trend is the shift of the workforce from the public to the private sector, which looks set to continue in the future.

Contact the authors via Twitter @duc_qn and @samueljaberg

Homegrown jihadism in Switzerland must not be over-exaggerated. At the same time, right and left-wing extremist groups remain equally problematic, was a Swiss expert.

Just how appealing are jihadi, rightwing and leftwing extremism to Swiss youngsters? This was the main theme of a conference organised on Wednesday by the social services department of Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW).

To gauge sentiment, ZHAW carried out a mini survey among 100 former ZHAW students and academics in attendance. The results were revealing: 66% said rightwing extremism was the biggest future challenge for society, ahead of jihadi extremism (25%) and leftwing extremism (8%).

Miryam Eser Davolio, a ZHAW researcher responsible for an exploratory study last year into jihadi radicalisation in Switzerland, said she was not surprised.

“Jihadist extremism remains a very limited phenomenon. I think we shouldn’t overestimate it and should be realistic. Rightwing extremism is still a problem in Switzerland but so is leftwing extremism, which is underestimated,” she told swissinfo.ch.

In a lull?

Last year the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) reported 199 incidents by leftwing extremists, down from 254 in 2010. This compares with 28 rightwing incidents, down from 55 five years earlier. There are thought to be around 1,000 rightwing sympathisers.

Meanwhile, in its April report the FIS said 73 Swiss people had left the country to fight for jihadi causes. There have been no new cases so far this year. The FIS is also monitoring the social media activity of around 400 potential jihadis. Since the begiing of 2016, 12 individuals have retued to Switzerland after involvement in jihadi activities, and all of them were charged with illegal activities upon retu.

Does this new FIS data suggest a slowdown in jihadi travellers from Switzerland?

“It’s difficult to say,” Eser said. “Some people have been prevented from leaving so you could say the intelligence agencies have done a good job. But it’s difficult to confirm. It could also be linked to the situation in Syria, which is not as attractive as before. But there is no consensus. Foreign fighters are still leaving from other countries, so it’s too early to say.”

It is estimated that over 600 people have left France for Syria and Iraq, with about 800 more wanting to leave to join Islamic State. According to the Federal Criminal Police, over 800 German residents - 60% of whom are German passport holders - have joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Roughly one-third have retued to Germany.

Parallels uncovered

In her study, Eser coordinated a team of 11 researchers who examined 66 Swiss jihadi cases between 2001 and July 2015. Most were men, aged 23-35, generally bo Muslims from former Yugoslavia and Somalia.

Their research also revealed parallels between jihadi and leftwing extremists.

“They believe in a utopia and think about creating a better state and hope to end the suffering of the Muslim people in that area,” she said. “They both believe in something. But often when they see the reality they want to retu home, especially when they see the violence against Muslims and big mess that Syria is in and how corrupt the ISIS system can be.”

Swiss authorities have been trying to get up to speed with the jihadi phenomenon. Last September, the cabinet approved a new counter-terrorism strategy, which focuses on prevention, law enforcement, protection and crisis management.

It aims to prevent radicalisation through education and jobs, and measures focusing on prisons, youth centres and places of worship, via dialogue with vulnerable communities, and by preventing the stigmatisation of minorities. Money has also been pumped into intelligence gathering.

Cities’ conce

Below federal and cantonal levels, some Swiss cities are also getting involved in prevention work, albeit in a piecemeal fashion. It was reported this week that the city of Winterthur, which was in the headlines as a place where young Muslims are being radicalised, had finally set up an extremism prevention service to help answer anxious citizens’ questions. Next month the association of Swiss cities is also meeting to discuss terror prevention.

“Switzerland is a little bit late [in strategising] but that’s natural as we have fewer cases,” said Eser, adding that northe Europe provides many examples of the way forward.

“Germany provides counselling and good instruments; we can lea from them. The same goes for the UK, which has a mentoring system and counselling and comprehensive prevention programmes. They’ve had these for years, as have the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway,” she said.

Cracking down

Meanwhile, Swiss authorities and parliament are taking a stricter line towards jihadi retuees and those seeking to travel to conflict zones. It was recently aounced that a Swiss-Italian dual national suspected of joining Islamic State could have his Swiss citizenship revoked – the first such case in Switzerland.

The Swiss Federal Criminal Court this year also upheld the decision of the Swiss Attoey General’s Office to confiscate the Swiss passport and identifying documents of an alleged Swiss-Lebanese jihadist.

Davolio argues that stricter punishments will not stop people leaving, however.

“Normally these people are living in a dream and don’t look beyond that. They don’t think about tuing back. Repression has a very limited function,” she declared.

“To take away citizenship is quite dangerous. Where do you send them? It’s very easy for us to get rid of them and to send them to another country. We have to act in a responsible and not just opportunistic way.”

Swiss tourism bosses are still cashing in on Heidi, 135 years after Johaa Spyri’s children’s classic was first published. (SRF/swissinfo.ch)

The story received a new lease of life with a Heidi film in 2015, which lured a half a million viewers into Swiss cinemas and was sold to more than 50 countries around the world.

Now the Heidi theme is being reworked again on a mountain in canton St Gallen. There are plans for a Heidi village in the Flumserberg ski area. A total investment of CHF100 million is being sought for two new hotels, a new ski gondola, and the Heidi Experience, which promises to recreate the 19th century novel using actors and real animals. The earmarked location for the Experience is Taenboden, above the lake of Walen. Tourism bosses hope it will help to attract up to 300,000 extra visitors per year.

The problem is that there is already another Heidi experience just 30 km away, above Maienfeld. In the little village or “Dörfli”, where the fictional character Heidi lived, you can visit 19th century houses, a stall with goats, a village store and a museum about Spyri. The locals say it’s the real McCoy for thousands of inteational tourists every year, and they’re not too worried about competition from Flumserberg.

Lukas Böni tests out the slime’s stretchy properties

(ETHZ/Simon Kuster)

The carrion-eating hagfish has been described as the “vacuum cleaner of the ocean”. But it also has another claim to fame: it can see off its attackers in a puff of slime. Zurich scientists are researching how this fast-forming hydrogel could be haessed for human use.

Jawless and boneless, the hagfish is a rather ugly-looking marine creature that has been around for more than 300 million years.

“They live in all the oceans except the polar seas, in the cold and rather salty waters. They are mainly scavengers, that means they feed on carcasses and dead bodies,” explained Lukas Böni, from the Laboratory of Food Process Engineering at the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ).

So why are the hagfish of interest to researchers at the lab? The answer is in the creature’s slime. When the hagfish is attacked or stressed it secretes vast amounts of the substance as a defence mechanism – as this shark finds out in this clip. It has to back off or face suffocation.

“Hagfish slime is special in many ways,” doctoral student Böni told swissinfo.ch. “It’s the most dilute hydrogel known today. It consists of 99.996% water which is a world record.”

“It’s also a hydrogel which forms extremely fast compared with other hydrogels, such as gelatine, that need time and energy input, so you need to cook it in order to form the gel. Hagfish slime forms in cold water with very little energy input.”

Nappies and contact lenses

Hydrogels are already used in many fields, from plasters to nappies, in food, like the gelatine mentioned above, and even in contact lenses. But none are as efficient and fast-forming as the natural hagfish slime.

“Our overall aim is to understand this efficient gelation mechanism and to transfer this insight to other systems to make hydrogels more effective,” Böni said of the lab’s three-year research project.

There are over 70 species of hagfish worldwide. It may look like an eel, but they are not closely related. Pictured here is the Atlantic hagfish

(ETHZ/Simon Kuster)

The hagfish’s hydrogel has two main components: 15-30 centimetre-long protein threads and mucin, which sits between the threads and makes the slime “slimy”.

The mucus and thread is produced in special ventral glands along the side of the hagfish. When it’s mixed with sea water it expands to create huge amounts of slime.

If you look at magnified pictures of the glandular secrete, as we did during swissinfo.ch’s visit to the lab, you can see these tiny threads coiled up. But how the coiled up thread unravels and forms the slime is not yet fully understood.

Under the microscope: the protein filament is coiled up within the sphere-like cells

(ETHZ/Simon Kuster)

You won’t, however, see any hagfish in the Zurich lab. Coming from a landlocked country, the scientists had to look elsewhere for their hagfish - and found them at the Atlantic Park in Ålesund in Norway.

Norway and fishing

“They have become good friends of ours. They help us on a voluntary basis: by going fishing for us or we go with them,” Böni said.

The four-person team visits Norway two to three times a year – the next visit is scheduled for October – to bring back slime samples. The first time the researchers went there, however, they were surprised to be met by a television crew.

But the resulting report had its advantages when it came to doing the official paperwork to take the hagfish samples out of Norway, Simon Kuster, Böni’s supervisor on the hagfish project, told swissinfo.ch.

“All those officials knew about us and they said: just send us all the necessary papers. So it was good and helpful - these crazy Swiss scientists in Norway trying to work with one of their least popular animals.”

Norwegian fishermen hate the hagfish (in this case the Atlantic hagfish, Myxine glutinosa), Kuster explained.

“When they go fishing with nets in depths of 40-50 metres, hagfish will come into the nets and start to eat the fish in the net. So if the fishermen take the nets up too late, all they see is just some skin and bones and some slime in the net. There are millions of these hagfish in the sea there.”

Difficult to keep: hagfish in a seawater tank

(ETHZ/Simon Kuster)

In any case, transporting the hagfish back to Switzerland is almost impossible, the scientists added. Hagfish don’t like captivity. They would also get stressed out by the jouey and release slime, suffocating themselves in the process.

Tasty?

So far the researchers have found out that the slime is susceptible to mechanic stresses. They have tried to stabilise it by adding other polymers to ensure that it does not collapse so easily. Their latest research was published in January.

Although there is some time before their research has practical applications, one possible use could be to structure foods, as the slime contains fibres, just as meat does.

“One nice thing is that it would be vegetarian, because when we harvest the slime the fish survives this,” Böni added.

And has anyone from the team actually tasted the slime? Böni admits he has, but as it is basically water it “tastes of the sea” or whatever you mix it with.

The ETHZ team is the only one in Europe looking into hagfish slime so far. A team in Canada has proposed that the slime’s fibres, which are similar to spider silk in being strong and stretchy, could be used to make textiles.

Scientists can lea a lot from nature, Kuster said. He enjoys the pure science of the slime project – observing, making a hypothesis, checking and correcting, coming up with new ideas - as well as the fruitful collaboration with their Norwegian colleagues.

As for Böni, he is pleased he can do something to rehabilitate this ocean ‘hoover’. “Maybe by doing this research it will raise further awareness that the hagfish is actually a very important animal for the ecosystem,” he said. And maybe its slime will be useful to humans, too.

Leaing from nature

Biomimicry involves scientists looking at nature and trying to extract the most important things from to make something useful, Simon Kuster says.

Kuster got the idea of looking at hagfish slime after watching a BBC documentary on the hagfish.

Another example of biomimicry is sharkskin. It’s covered by tiny V-shaped scales, called denticles, which reduce drag and turbulence. The principle has been used to make swimsuits which can improve a swimmer’s speed.

Spider webs are also a goal in the research world, as recreating the powerful spider silk could produce durable fabrics. But no one has yet managed this most tricky of tasks.

(Source: Simon Kuster, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Wall Street Joual)

Is Swiss politics just a numbers game?

(Keystone)

Wiers versus losers, leftwing versus rightwing – the political process is full of rhetoric that separates people and issues into categories. But the reality is rarely so black-and-white, particularly in a direct democracy like Switzerland.

On February 28, 2016, Swiss citizens went to the polls to vote on four separate issues – among them, an initiative to enforce deportation of criminal foreigners, and an initiative to ban speculation on food commodities.

In the end, 41.1% of voters said ‘yes’ to the Swiss People’s Party’s so-called enforcement initiative, while 40.1% said ‘yes’ to the Young Socialists’ food speculation initiative. In other words, both lost.

Numbers-wise, it was a nearly identical outcome for the parties that had championed the two initiatives. But in practice, the outcomes were very different.

As Switzerland’s largest political party, the People’s Party considered receiving 41.1% of the vote for their enforcement initiative to be a loss. On the other hand, the Young Socialists, who represent just 1% of the Swiss population, celebrated the support they received for their proposed ban on food commodity speculation.

“Of course, we prefer to win, but we are happy we got more than 40% of the vote,” Young Socialists president Fabian Molina told swissinfo.ch.

Food speculation initiative

The Young Socialists, the youth section of the leftwing Social Democratic Party, originally launched their food speculation initiative in 2012. They argued that when companies speculate – i.e., make investments based on calculated financial risks – on food commodities, spikes in food prices can result, with especially harmful consequences for poor people. The Young Socialists called for a ban that would prevent banks, insurers, and investment funds based in Switzerland from speculating on food-related commodities to prevent this kind of price fluctuation. But others argued that the move could mean economic disaster for Switzerland by discouraging investments of global companies.

Enforcement of deportation initiative

Switzerland’s conservative right wanted a rule that said that if a foreigner residing in Switzerland commits a crime, he or she would automatically be deported to their country of origin. This would apply across the board in all crime cases, even those conceing so-called “Secondos”, second generation immigrants who had spent their entire lives in Switzerland and had no close ties to their native countries. Opponents felt that in addition to denying people their basic human rights, the rule would not allow for special circumstances in which deportation would result in severe hardship, for example by sending a person to a country where they had no family or language skills.

“A slap in the face”

The Young Socialists had gone out on a limb with their extremely leftwing initiative, and at a particularly risky time, with the Swiss economy still reeling from the impact of the strong franc.

“The Young Socialists brought the food speculation ban initiative as the underdogs, with idealistic conces that were dismissed by large organisations as being uecessary and anti-business,” says Niklaus Bieri, a researcher at the University of Be Institute for Political Science.

“For me, the fact that the Young Socialists did not win this vote was not a surprise. But despite electoral defeat, the Young Socialists were nevertheless able to maintain their reputation.”

Meanwhile, the People’s Party had been struggling to get their deportation initiative implemented since 2010: after their original initiative was accepted, parliament modified it to address challenges to implementing it in practice. The February 28 vote thus focused on the “enforcement” of the original strategy.

Bieri called the vote result “a slap in the face, given the claim of the People’s Party that they would be enforcing the will of the people with this initiative”.

Adrian Amstutz, a senior member of the House of Representatives for the People’s Party, says his party accepts the loss as the decision of the Swiss people, but expresses confidence in future success. He also points out the distinction between victory on the scale of an initiative, and on the scale of a nation.

“Direct democracy is one of the greatest achievements of mode-day Switzerland. Here the people gove, and this should remain so,” Amstutz told swissinfo.ch.

“The voices of the voters are, from a political party point of view, a good indicator of success. From a national perspective, it is the preservation and development of security, independence, freedom and prosperity that show how successful a political system is.”

“It would not surprise me if the People’s Party is shown to be right about the enforcement initiative in the end… if the first foreign murderers and rapists are not deported, there will be a rude awakening for many voters.”

Silver linings

According to Bieri, while there are very few – if any – situations where losing a people’s initiative can actually be preferable to wiing, there can still be important silver linings to a minority vote in a direct democracy like Switzerland.

“If a vote fails, the losing players can often still rely on having a large part of the population on their side. In rare cases, a vote that is lost by a large majority can still be deemed a notable success, with a significant influence on politics,” Bieri says.

Case-in-point

In 1989, anti-army initiative from the pacifist group Switzerland without an Army, received more than one-third of the vote. Although the initiative itself failed, the fact that a third of the voters supported the abolition of the Swiss army was highly unexpected. This result damaged the army’s standing and significance in Swiss society – something that was interpreted as a success by the vote’s initiators.

“When you start an initiative, you want to win it. But in the meantime, you have other goals like wiing new party members, and being in the centre of the media interest. Your goal is to present your movement as a strong, serious movement in the political discussion, and I think we achieved that,” says Molina.

“With this vote, we re-politicised issues of hunger and starvation, which were for a long time just a matter of fact - there was no discussion about the fact that the hunger of the poor has something to do with the rich and how we live in the west.”

Who’s keeping score?

While bringing issues to the public’s attention may already count as a victory for smaller political parties, there are other ways to define political success apart from the results of popular initiatives. For example in his own research, Bieri measures the impact of political actors based on the incorporation of their ideas into Swiss law or the constitution.

He also points out that focusing on wiing and losing votes is not the be-all, end-all of politics in Switzerland anyway.

“In a system in which two major parties compete with each other, the defeat of one party to the other is mercilessly exploited,” Bieri explains.

“Switzerland has a multi-party system – smaller parties are represented in parliament, and cantonal govements are also composed of representatives of several parties. So the question of wiing or losing in Switzerland is therefore probably less significant than it is countries with a more polarised political system.”

In Be, some 170 pupils under the age of 20 came to hear the activists' testimony.

(swissinfo.ch)

Two Syrian refugees have described to Swiss students the brutal torture they suffered while in a Damascus prison, as part of a tour organised by Amnesty Inteational.

Amal Nasr, who has received refuge in Switzerland, and Raneem Ma’touq, a refugee in Germany, gave their testimony recently before secondary school students in Be.

The tour of Swiss schools and universities marked the fifth year of fighting in Syria.

“Have Syrians always been repressed to such a degree, or has the situation worsened in recent years?” “How many Syrians are persecuted by the ruling regime?” “Are people in Switzerland and Germany friendly towards you?”

Students at the Kirchenfeld school asked these questions at the end of the seminar. Signs of shock were clear on their faces as they listened to the accounts given by the two women through interpreters.

“I was beaten on my back by a torture device called ‘Flying Carpet’. My left foot was broken. My hair was cut with a knife. Cigarettes were put out in my hands. I was lashed with a whip on my back and hands as they beat me. My left hand needed 48 stitches. I bled for three months. I lost my eyesight for three hours, then I was transferred to a hospital where I underwent gynaecological surgery – I don’t know what they did, and I am a virgin.”

This is part of the testimony with which Amal Nasr opened her talk to students. She was not the victim in that case. The victim was a 22-year-old political prisoner in the Adra prison for women in Damascus, one of the largest prisons in the country. She sent a letter to Nasr, a feminist activist who since the 1990s has been defending the rights of women in Syria. She has been arrested several times.

Dream becomes nightmare

Nasr was granted asylum in Switzerland more than a year ago after she had to escape from Syria because the security forces pursued her after she had left prison. She told the young audience that most Syrian women fled their homeland “to protect their children from rape, killing, kidnapping and detention”.

“I left Syria illegally, leaving my only daughter, aged 20, in Damascus to bear the brunt of the dirty war between Islamic State and the regime,” she added.

Fighting back tears as she told the Swiss audience her daughter’s age, Nasr said her daughter had remained in Syria and she caot now come to Switzerland as Swiss laws do not allow reunions with children over 18.

She explained that the last time she had been detained was because of her involvement in a peace initiative between women supporters and opponents of the Syrian regime. But her dream of peace tued into a nightmare in the Adra prison after she had been charged with terrorism.

She found herself behind bars with about 800 women, “the sisters, mothers or daughters of young men who had to take up arms to confront the regime’s violence”.

“We experienced political detention before the revolution, but the detention after the revolution has been scary,” she said. “We were 12 women in a cell about two metres long and one-and-a-half metres wide. We could neither sleep nor sit. There were girls aged 13 and mothers aged 86 among us. I will never forget the day when a young woman entered the cell and shouted the number of a corpse outside: 15,940.”

The young woman knew the number because many prisoners, young and old, had a number on their back, explained Raneem Ma’touq, who was also detained in Adra prison where she met Nasr, a friend of her parents.

Numbers on backs

“I saw children in the prison with numbers on their backs, and of course the fate of each child or person with a number on their back was death under torture or execution. You can’t believe that those children were terrorists,” said Ma’touq, who took refuge in Germany with her mother and brother about a year ago.

“Around 11 corpses would be carried out of the prison every day, and this was not done right after death: the dead bodies used to stay with the prisoners for several days to the extent that the smell of freedom became associated with the smell of death.”

In a quiet voice, she explained how detainees were often locked away in secret places so no information would be available about them or about where “the worst kinds of torture are practised, women raped and organs of detainees trafficked”.

Speaking about the “crime” that took her to Adra prison, the young university student said: “My activity in Syria was the organisation of peaceful student demonstrations demanding freedom and a civil state. For the regime, our activity was more dangerous than armed groups or the terrorism of the so-called Daesh [Islamic State]. Despite all our peaceful demands for freedom, we were always referred to terrorism courts.”

Raneem Ma’touq’s father Khalil Ma’touq was a lawyer and human rights activist for more than 20 years. He disappeared in October 2012 along with a colleague on their way to their workplace in Damascus. Since then, she has not heard anything about her father. She discovered while she was being investigated that her father had been detained by the Syrian regime, but the regime denies this.

Desire for truth

After the testimonies, it was time to answer the students’ questions and to listen to their Idea on what they had heard.

“Repression has been practised in Syria for more than 40 years. There is a school specialising in Syrian repression,” said Nasr.

On the number of citizens being persecuted by the regime, she believes it exceeds 60%, adding that, according to her estimates, “the number of missing people exceeds a quarter of the population”.

As for the kindness and friendliness shown by Swiss and German people, Raneem Ma’touq said “the people of Europe in general are bashful”. She added that her experience in Germany had shown that “the great majority of people want to know what is happening in Syria because the media do not always cover the whole truth”.

Student reaction

“I was deeply affected by their accounts,” a male student told swissinfo.ch. “They provided a lot of information that I was not aware of with regard to the status of women detainees. I was shocked by the numbering of prisoners and the fact that they knew in advance that their inevitable fate would be death.”

A female student was stued by the 60% figure of the number of citizens being persecuted by the regime. “I was very surprised to know that the family and relatives of people who struggle for democracy were exposed to persecution, and I was shocked because our media hide these sides of the conflict,” she said.

One person expressed her great shock. “I knew that the situation in Syria was horrible, but what the two former detainees said about the conditions in prison is really beyond belief, especially the story of the corpses which stay with the prisoners for days. These things are almost unbelievable here and I feel helpless because I can’t do anything here, or can do just a little while the situation deteriorates there.”

A male student was greatly touched by Raneem Ma’touq’s testimony, as he himself was a refugee from Kosovo. “Such seminars provide a chance to build a realistic picture of asylum for people who have no ties to refugees or foreigners and those who fear refugees.”

Another said: “I’m always touched by such testimonies about things we do not have here in Europe. We caot imagine what this suffering means to these people. We can just try to understand it. This mother is here, but her daughter is still there in Syria (...). We don’t get the same picture of Syria if we read newspapers or watch TV. So when we listen to testimonies like these, it’s as if we’re discovering a new truth."

Syrian refugees, on tour

In each seminar, the number of attendees exceeded expectations, sometimes more than double the number.

Amnesty said its goal was to "give Syrians an opportunity to express their suffering, and so that not only what is published in the media about Syria and the govements’ efforts to resolve the refugee crisis is relied on." Amnesty wanted to highlight the reasons that pushed Syrians to flee their country.

Mass deaths in Syrian prisons ‘amount to genocide’

In February 2016, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, which includes former Swiss attoey general Carla Del Ponte, issued a report stating that the mass killing of detainees in Syrian govement prisons amounted to the state carrying out an “extermination” policy against the civilian population, which is a crime against humanity.

The independent investigators said in their report that they also documented mass executions and torture of prisoners carried out by two extremist groups – Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State – and these acts amount to war crimes. The report, titled "Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Deaths in Detention", covers the period from March 10, 2011, to November 30, 2015. It is based on interviews with 621 survivors and witnesses and pieces of evidence.

There was no response from the Syrian govement and it rejected the content of similar reports in the past.

(Source: news agencies)

More than 8,000 state-owned public service workers are “overpaid”, according to research that tests the possible impact of a Swiss people’s initiative. If the initiative is accepted on June 5, the three main employers affected may have to impose a CHF127.3 million ($130 million) collective wage cut.

One of the aims of the “Pro Public Services” initiative is to restrict wages to the same levels as those eaed by civil servants and other people who work directly for the federal administration.

For example, chief executives should not ea more than a govement minister (CHF475,000), according to the initiative. Swisscom boss Urs Schaeppi takes home CHF1.8 million while the heads of the Swiss Post and Swiss Federal Railways ea around CHF1 million.

Researchers at Swiss Economics took a deeper look at wages of these three public services, comparing several salary bands with govement offices. They identified 8,111 public service employees who could stand to suffer a wage cut after June 5.

This has fed the ire of independent politician Thomas Minder, who successfully pioneered an initiative against “fat cat salaries” in the private sector in 2013. He complained to the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper that small and medium-sized enterprises “can no longer compete” for the best workers with the higher wages paid at public service firms.

But the Swiss Employees Association, TravailSuisse, countered in the newspaper that it was pointless to compare public service company jobs with govement workers as they performed different tasks.

That point was also taken up by George Sheldon, an economist at the University of Basel who specialises in the labour market. He pointed out that Swisscom is partly privatised while the financial arm of the post office, PostFinance, is also on track to go private.

“It is very dangerous to compare bureaucrats with someone working for a company that has one foot in the private market,” he told swissinfo.ch. “Do they do exactly the same thing? Do they work in the same environment? Are we really comparing equals?”

Swiss Economics, which was commissioned to do the research by two associations representing alpine regions and municipalities (both opposed to the initiative), also worked out the potential savings to be made should the three largest public service firms trim wages to match govement counterparts.

These amounted to 2.5% for Swisscom, 2% for Swiss Post and less than 1.5% for the Federal Railways. The 8,111 affected employees make up 12% of the entire workforce of the three companies combined.

Despite a big gap in pay at the top of each organisation, the wage difference among middle managers in the public sector and govement was low, said the report’s main author Christian Jaag.

UBS wealth management boss Jürg Zeltner is 20 minutes late. He has apologies at the ready and the pereial good excuse of a banker: he was with a client.

Mr Zeltner has more clients to occupy him than most. Some of the world’s richest heirs and entrepreneurs have entrusted him and his team with almost CHF1 trillion ($1 trillion) of their money. That buys a lot of face time.

The 49-year-old has more than just his paymasters to satisfy. He has had the weight of the UBS Group’s prosperity on his shoulders since a 2012 restructuring put wealth management at the centre of its operations.

Still, clients are his favoured topic. He is even prepared to take some hits for them. Take the bank’s sponsorship of Formula One, which plays poorly with the general public in an age of austerity and cutbacks.

“I do not run the business to have good media coverage, nor do I run it to please analysts,” Mr Zeltner says, with little thought for the man sitting a few feet away tasked with getting his business good media coverage.

“We try to do the right thing for our clients. We have thousands of people who talk to clients, who have a pretty good feel for what they value, what they don’t value and we measure the success of these platforms.”

Pleasing analysts is not something Mr Zeltner has been accused of too much in recent months.

In February, the bank’s stock fell 8 per cent, largely because of unexpected outflows of client money in Mr Zeltner’s division. Earlier this month, UBS’s shares fell 6.5 per cent on the day the bank aounced weaker than expected first-quarter profits, albeit with a rebound in client money flowing to wealth management.

UBS, and other wealth managers, have also taken a hammering in the court of public opinion after the Panama Papers’ revelations about banks helping the wealthy to use offshore havens to dodge taxes. Mr Zeltner does not want to discuss the Panama issues in any detail.

On the financial side, he believes his business should be judged on a longer-term basis. Important investors understand this, he says.

Still, the share-price collapses sting. “Do you really think it is my pleasure to see our share price drop on the back of this number?” he says of the market reaction to the bank’s fourth-quarter results. “Of course not. Of course you don’t have a good day. But then two, three days later you see everybody [in the market] struggling [and that] puts it into [perspective].”

Before those blips, UBS was almost universally lauded as the posterchild for bank restructuring thanks to its decision to cut back its investment bank and put wealth management at the heart of the group. “If you look at our valuation, we still ea a 30 per cent-plus premium over the basket [of European financials],” says Mr Zeltner. “Of course, it [the 2012 strategy] has worked.”

Mr Zeltner’s side of the business has grown invested assets from CHF821 billion at the end of 2012 to CHF925 billion at the end of March. Aual profits increased from CHF2.1 billion to CHF2.8 billion during the same period. A separately run wealth management Americas division has also blossomed.

Mr Zeltner is convinced UBS will retain an edge over its competitors, even as rivals including Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse plough more resources into wealth management. “We are the only truly global wealth business,” he says. His mission statement is unchanged: “We want to be in the right markets and we want to show to the market that we can capture more share of that market than anybody else, and we have done that for 30 quarters.”

The world, however, has changed around him. Fears over China’s growth, low interest rates and market volatility are all making life more difficult. Mr Zeltner hopes a new round of cost cuts will revive his division’s profitability, which took a hit in the first quarter. He gave up on interest rate rises “two years ago” but believes Asia will remain an important growth area that will benefit UBS more than rivals investing there now.

“If you want to build Asia, you need a decade and you need substantial money, hundreds of millions,” he says. “Through the worst moments after the financial crisis, I invested every year in Asia. In just the past two months we opened new branches in Shanghai and Kowloon.”

Earlier this year, as the world fretted about China’s slowing growth, Sergio Ermotti, UBS group chief executive, outlined plans to double the bank’s headcount in the country over five years.

Mr Zeltner says the market and economic turmoil means his job is now even more exciting than it was back in 2012. He is the longest-serving member of UBS’s executive committee and an obvious contender to succeed Mr Ermotti.

Andrea Orcel, president of UBS’s investment bank, staked his claim for the top seat in an interview last year, when he said he would like to be chief executive of a bank in general and of his current bank in particular.

The Idea raised eyebrows inteally. Mr Zeltner treads carefully. “There is nothing to be discussed,” he says of the ambition to be chief executive that colleagues say he harbours. “I like my job a lot and I try in this job to contribute as much as I can to the success of UBS. I have a role to play and I love playing it.”

Despite describing himself as “very ambitious” he insists he is content to stay on in the job he has done for eight years. “I have leat over the past couple of years that it is actually very helpful to have seen the cycles,” he says. “This notion that people should change jobs every other year is totally wrong.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016

Signing up via a stand on the market – a thing of the past? Digital democracy advocates are aiming for half of signatures collected online.

(Keystone)

Campaigns increasingly take place on the inteet, and in Switzerland, initiatives and referendums can now be signed online, thanks to wecollect.ch. Will this stimulate interest in politics or undermine the coherence and credibility of the system?

One click to select the topic, three fields to fill in (suame, first name, email) and, hey presto, you receive a form that you can print out, sign, fold in two and slip into a mailbox – the postage is paid by the recipient. From now on, this method of collecting signatures for the tools of direct democracy (initiatives, referenda) could well replace the traditional market stalls and door-to-door canvassing.

In just a few days, wecollect.ch has already gaered more than 27,200 signatures in support of the three initiatives (soon four) it is promoting. The fact that these texts were launched by the leftwing Social Democratic Party and other left-wing groups – the website is on this side of the political spectrum – is immaterial. The right is bound to follow suit soon, if necessary by launching its own platform.

“A start up – but non-profit”

“The several thousands of Swiss francs needed to start wecollect came from my own pocket,” Daniel Graf told swissinfo.ch. “At the moment we're a startup and the final structures will only be up and ruing by the end of the year. But the aim is to stay a non-profit organisation.”

His partner in wecollect is Donat Kaufma, a student who made a name for himself in 2015 by collecting CHF140,000 ($144,000) via crowdfunding. This paid for a front page ad in the free newspaper 20 Minutes to counter the all-powerful publicity machine belonging to the conservative right Swiss People’s Party.

Crowdfunding is part of wecollect, but only to lower the costs of campaigns it has launched. The idea is to give smaller organisations access to instruments of direct democracy. They often don’t have the funding. “We want to be the facilitators, but there are only two of us and we can’t dictate the political agenda,” Graf said.

Digital impact

Of course, Swiss politics has not waited for wecollect to make use of the worldwide web. As so often in recent years, the conservative right has been the trailblazer in the field of communication.

“The campaign by the Swiss People's Party [SVP in German] for the 2015 parliamentary elections marked the begiing of a revolution in political communication in Switzerland, which now really uses social networks and the Inteet systematically as a source of information and, above all, mobilisation,” explains Lukas Golder, a political scientist at the research institute gfs.be.

And the strategy is paying off: in October 2015, the People's Party boosted its representation in parliament's lower house from 54 to 65 seats. Young people have also been won over, not least thanks to the fast-paced and rather humourous video clip "Welcome to SVP". The video – produced in Swiss-German dialect, with electro music playing in the background – went viral, with over 900,000 views so far.

Then, a few months later, in February 2016, it was the joint campaign by the left, right and civil society against the so-called enforcement initiative on “foreign criminals” that eaed the People’s Party a stinging defeat. This time, there was no trendy clip, but rather mobilisation and fundraising on social networks, which observers have described as “unprecedented”.

Dynamic campaigns

Of course, Switzerland has already had some very dynamic political campaigns, as in 1989, when over one third of citizens voted to abolish the army, and in 1992, when voters refused to join the European Economic Area (EEA) by a hair's breadth. Yet at that time there was no web and no mobile phones.

“Regarding the EEA, more than 10% of those who voted had also physically taken part in a campaign event,” remembers Golder.

“This is an all-time record, and it meant that political mobilisation was also very visible in the streets. Back then, television was the mass medium par excellence. While still important today, it is gradually losing ground.”

Social networks are taking over as the new mass medium. However, as a mass medium it is paradoxically also very individual, as people can withdraw into their information “bubble”, where they see only the content that interests them and read only the opinions of people who think like them, according to Golder.

Not so fast!

In a world where the Inteet is omnipresent, the advent of wecollect seems a logical consequence. Its founder Daniel Graf, who was formerly secretary of the Green Party in Zurich and a spokesman for Amnesty Inteational, is now committed to the campaign for an unconditional basic income.

With his platform, he is seeking to create a “fast, effective and viral” striking force, using the member lists of left-wing parties and some NGOs. “Anyone who is backed by a dynamic community that can be activated by email has a real gem," he recently told the Sunday press.

At first glance, all this seems like grist for the mill for direct democracy. By facilitating access to its instruments, the Inteet can only make it more dynamic and reactive. However there are risks, which Golder places in the broader context of the acceleration of political processes.

“This evolution began already in the days when television reigned supreme,” he notes. “The faster the media get, the quicker politics must react. However, Swiss politics is not known for its high speed of reaction, as it is founded on the search for compromise, which can take years.”

New dimension

“With a tool like wecollect, we are again entering a new dimension,” he continues. “If collecting signatures becomes very easy and inexpensive, we will witness a further acceleration, with the growing risk that trivial questions are put forward, or texts that have not been properly thought through, as the authors didn't have time to ponder all the eventualities.”

Not to mention the fact that a proliferation of initiatives could make politics uavigable, both for citizens and the media, which still plays a key role in explaining issues and putting them into perspective.

It's still early in the process, and Golder is looking forward to seeing where it all leads, while keeping an open mind.

“It is above all a means to raise interest in politics. And with our militia system, especially at the municipal level, which is closest to the citizen, this is going to make a big difference for our country.”

The inteet is slashing prices

“Nobody really dares to talk about how much a people’s initiative costs,” Lukas Golder said. The first digital signature collection in Switzerland is for an initiative by the Social Democratic party on introducing transparent party financing. Switzerland is the only country in Europe with no law on the issue.

Normally signatures for initiatives are collected by activists and sympathisers to the cause on the streets. But there are also companies offering signature collectors for hire.

The whole process – from printing the petition forms to handing in the initiative to the Federal Chancellery – is a big expense. Golder reckons that the collection of 100,000 signatures for an initiative could cost between CHF500,000 and CHF1 million ($513,000-$1.3 million). That’s CHF5-10 per signature.

wecollect could cut costs. You print out the document at home and then pay 85 cents for the postage – so 100,000 signatures costs CHF85,000. There are further costs too. But Graf believes that in the end under it would be under CHF1 per signature.

Political art: This poster by Christian Mueller pokes fun at the election campaign of the People's Party ten years ago. The rightwing group used a goat as its mascot

(f-u-k.ch)

The promoters of an unusual people’s initiative to “deport criminal men” say the campaign has achieved its goal even though it won’t be put to a nationwide vote. But was it anything more than a frivolous use of direct democratic rights?

The proposal was launched 18 months ago and caused considerable amusement in the media near and far.

It was a “political work of art”, says Christian Mueller, the man behind the action that will come to an unspectacular end on Wednesday.

The idea was a protest against a rightwing initiative, approved by voters in 2010, to automatically deport criminal foreigners.

Mueller copied and pasted the original hardline text, replacing the words “foreigner(s)” by “man/men”.

Despite no proper campaign or budget, Mueller says he and cohorts collected several thousand signatures. However, he won’t hand them in to the Federal Chancellery for validation.

Under Swiss law, it takes at least 100,000 citizens to sign a proposal for a vote on a constitutional amendment.

Satire

“It was meant as a kind of satire,” says the 35-year-old activist and artist from Basel. He considers his action a success.

But personally, his goal was never to collect enough signatures.

“We achieved our aim. The hardline proposal to enforce the 2010 initiative was rejected this February. I hope our action contributed to it.

“Art should also be allowed to be political,” he adds.

This is his response to critical questions as to whether the use of artistic means in a political public debate is acceptable.

Mueller says the Federal Chancellery had checked the text of the initiative and gave the green light for the formal launch of the proposal in November 2014. Even if it implicitly called for an expulsion of convicted Swiss citizens from their own country. But where to?

“It’s up to parliament to find a solution to this question,” he says.

Mentality

It is not easy to find comprehensive and reliable information on similar mock initiatives in recent Swiss history.

Artists have staged different actions in the context of the rightwing deportation proposal.

At a formal news conference in Zurich in 2010 a group of actors aounced the launch of a people’s initiative seeking the introduction of a penal system based on the nationality of the criminal – a flagrant violation of human rights, but an analogy to the aims of the original plans.

The initiative had little impact in the media and was withdrawn at an earlier stage than plaed, according to the promoters. (See video in German.)

Another apparent spoof campaign that was registered with the govement dates back to 1983 when a committee called for taxes to promote the consumption of tobacco. It was an attempt to parody road transport associations trying to boost road traffic by securing further state financing.

However, there are serious doubts political satire has much of an impact in Switzerland. Experts say there is little acceptance for such approaches.

Frivolous?

Georg Lutz, professor of political science at the University of Lausae, is wary of putting limits on initiatives just because they might be considered frivolous or in breach of common sense norms.

He says proposals can only be baed if they violate the core principles of inteational law or coherence – quite a vague criteria.

Lutz points to highly controversial proposals launched by political parties over the past few years.

“These initiatives were often intended as obvious political campaign tools and risked undermining basic rights,” he argues.

Failed initiatives

He rejects allegations that the launch of the criminal men spoof initiative is a misuse of a direct democratic right because the promoters made no serious effort to win the necessary support of citizens. And they are not alone.

A survey shows that one in five people’s initiatives launched between 1981 and 2010 ended without reaching the required number of signatures.

The proposal to deport criminal men is in fact the 114th people’s initiative in mode Swiss history to fail at this early stage of the process – and the first one this year.

This comes on top of the 181 proposals rejected by voters in nationwide ballots since the direct democratic right to call for changes in the constitution was introduced in 1891. Only 22 of them have been successful so far.

Links

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis and preimplantation genetic screening are often confused.

(Keystone)

When reproductive decisions and politics meet, the ethical arguments can quickly become complex and passionate – as they should in a direct democracy. But how can we understand the medical procedure at the heart of the issue?

On June 5, the Swiss will vote – for the second time within 12 months – on allowing embryos created via in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) to be tested for genetic or chromosomal abnormalities prior to their implantation in a woman’s uterus.

It’s an issue that has stirred up social, ethical, and emotional arguments across the Swiss political spectrum.

Proponents of preimplantation genetic testing argue that the practice could help couples who have known genetic disorders in their medical history avoid passing on these traits to their children.

But some opponents condemn denying those with inherited genetic disorders the right to life. Others are conceed about the possibility of creating embryos for the sole purpose of providing stem cells to treat an ill sibling, or about the slippery slope toward “designer babies”.

The political background

In June 2015, the Swiss voted in favour of amending article 119 of the Swiss constitution to allow for preimplantation genetic testing. This change created a framework within which preimplantation genetic tests might be possible, but did not provide guidelines for how it should be implemented.

However, opponents of the respective law – the Reproductive Medicine Act (RMA) - have forced another nationwide vote, set for June 5, 2016. If approved, the revised RMA will provide the guidelines needed to regulate preimplantation genetic tests in practice for couples who risk transmitting a “serious” genetic disorder to their offspring, or who caot conceive naturally.

What’s currently legal?

Today in Switzerland, if a couple wishes to do preimplantation genetic testing they must travel abroad, as most other European countries permit it in some form. Otherwise, they must wait until 12 weeks into a pregnancy to conduct an amniocentesis. No more than three IVF embryos can be produced at one time, and they must all be implanted into a woman’s uterus immediately – a practice that raises the probability of a high-risk multiple pregnancy.

If approved, changes to the RMA would include increasing the maximum number of embryos that can be produced in an IVF cycle to 12, and allowing IVF embryos to be stored via freezing rather than implanted all at once. Creating embryos specifically for harvesting stem cells or for gender selection unrelated to a genetic disorder would still be prohibited.

Diagnosis versus screening

When we talk about preimplantation genetic tests, we are really talking about two different procedures: preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and preimplantation genetic screening (PGS). The two are often confused, as they are very similar – in fact, the technology is essentially the same. The difference lies in the patient groups seeking treatment.

PGD is used when there is a known risk of transmitting a certain disorder from parent to offspring, and it has been an established medical technique for about 30 years. In countries where PGD is permitted, couples who could otherwise become pregnant naturally undergo IVF specifically to create an embryo outside the womb, so that it can be tested for a specific genetic disorder prior to implantation.

PGS is a newer, more controversial technique used to screen IVF embryos for an abnormal number of chromosomes, and not a specific genetic abnormality. A healthy embryo should have exactly 46 chromosomes; more or fewer often results in miscarriage. Trisomy 21 – also known as Down syndrome – is one condition that can be detected using PGS.

Since the 1990s, PGS has become more widespread because many women who choose to have a child via IVF do so because they are of advanced mateal age, or because they have already experienced miscarriage or other fertility problems. The goal is therefore to minimise the chances of this happening again by helping to select the ‘healthiest’ embryo, chromosomally-speaking.

“In my view, we are still waiting for the reports of randomised controlled trials to confirm if PGS results in an increase in delivery rates. But there are clinics now that offer PGS for every single embryo for every single patient,” says Joyce Harper, a professor of human genetics and embryology at University College London and Deputy Director of the UCL Centre for PGD.

If given the green light on June 5, the revised RMA would allow both PGD and PGS to be practiced in Switzerland.

The tests – and the costs

In the case of PGD, there are two stages to the procedure: the embryo biopsy, and the genetic testing.

The biopsy is most often done on the fifth day of embryonic development. In this procedure, doctors remove a few cells that will eventually become part of the placenta for testing. The ier cell mass, which will go on to develop into the foetus itself, is not biopsied.

The biopsied cells are then sent to a laboratory for tests. There are hundreds of genetic conditions that can be tested for using PGD, but the most common include cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs disease, spinal muscular atrophy, haemophilia, sickle-cell disease, Duchee’s muscular dystrophy, and thalassemia.

Medical costs vary widely, but Harper estimates that the average cost of PGD alone – not including IVF costs – is somewhere around €2,500 (CHF2,735). In Switzerland, insurance does not cover IVF per se, although it may cover hormone stimulation with certain drugs.

The biopsy and testing can technically be done within a day, although it is usually more efficient and cost-effective to perform tests in batches, leading to a longer overall waiting time of up to a month. In the interim, the embryos must be preserved, which is why the change to Switzerland’s RMA to allow embryo freezing would be an essential step toward permitting PGD in practice.

Although the basic procedure can be explained in just a few sentences, PGD is a difficult process because it requires otherwise fertile couples to undergo hormone therapy and egg harvesting as part of the prerequisite IVF.

“PGD is a very difficult procedure for a patient to go through, I feel – it’s not something a couple is going to go through lightly”, says Harper.

“If a couple chooses prenatal diagnosis, they get pregnant the old fashioned way, and then have a ten-minute procedure to do an amniocentesis…with the hope that everything is OK. But the problem with a prenatal diagnosis is that if the foetus is affected [by a genetic abnormality], the outcome of that would be a lot more traumatic because then they would have to decide to continue or have a termination."

Links

Here are the stories we will be watching in the week of May 16:

Monday

Ahead of next month’s vote on whether to allow embryos created via IVF to be tested for genetic or chromosomal abnormalities prior to their implantation, we take a closer look at the differences between pre-implantation genetic tests and genetic screenings.

Wednesday

Who are the wiers and who are the losers in a direct democratic system with regular public votes? We try and provide the answer – but the picture is rarely so black-an-white in Switzerland.

Wednesday

Christie’s in Geneva is to auction the world’s largest blue diamond. Potential buyers need an estimated $40 million (CHF38.8 million) to become the owners of the 14.62-carat stone.

Friday

The use of digital technology has led to more than 180,000 jobs being cut in Switzerland over the past 15 years. The increased use of robots is prompting conces among those in the high skill sector. Will doctors, managers and lawyers have to fear for their jobs in the future?

What you may have missed last week:

It takes a lot of work to get ready for a major sports competition – and not just on the part of the athletes. Why do it? This week swissinfo.ch talks to a range of people involved in the 2016 European Gymnastics Championships in Be.

The latest reform to our asylum law is tougher but also brings benefits for those entitled to legal protection, says Balthasar Glättli, a member of the House of Representatives for the Green Party.

By Balthasar Glättli

In the face of the humanitarian refugee crisis, we need to solve the problems in our asylum system – not create them. But by launching yet another referendum, this is exactly what the Swiss People’s Party is trying to do, Glättli argues.

For decades, Switzerland’s asylum policy has been faced with significant symbolic disputes. On the one hand, it’s the fight against asylum abuse, or the number of asylum seekers, which is allegedly too large. On the other hand, it’s the struggle to defend Switzerland’s long-standing humanitarian tradition.

Up until now, every single revision has followed the same patte. Due to the pressure of the Swiss People’s Party or with the intention of undermining its motives, the cabinet launches measures to tighten the asylum law. The Swiss parliament, which is dominated by the centre-right, then adds fuel to these already tight measures, which are then opposed by the Greens and Social Democrats, who usually call a referendum and fail miserably.

For the first time, the popular vote on the new asylum law, which is scheduled for June 5, paints a different picture. All parties ranging from the Greens to the Social Democratic Party and Christian Democrats support the reorganisation of the asylum procedures, as it comes with a compromise.

On the one hand, it is definitely tougher and will significantly speed up procedures leading to a legally binding positive or negative decision. On the other hand, it offers asylum seekers pro bono legal advice for first instance proceedings. The Swiss People’s Party is the only party opposing this compromise, and has therefore called a referendum.

Good marks for pilot phase

This latest referendum is also rather unusual as the consequences of the new law are already predictable. Prior to a vote, supporters and opponents usually argue about whether a new law would actually achieve the expected effects.

This new asylum procedure has already been checked out by a company in Zurich and has been subject to a reality check since January 2014.

The evaluation done by independent experts has shown that it meets all expectations: the handling time for application procedures has been cut by a third, with the complaint rate also dropping by a third.

In fact, the number of asylum seekers retuing to their countries of origin has tripled, as they had no other choice than to accept that their application would not stand a chance.

However, there has been some criticism from the left. Receiving pro bono legal advice is not totally unconditional, as the Swiss People’s Party wrongly claims when it talks about “pro bono lawyers”. The legal advisors are simply asked not to launch hopeless appeals. The Green Party is adamant that in future, the new federal centres must not be closed camps, but must be open for neighbours and independent organisations to visit.

Despite these voices of criticism, the Green Party as well as Amnesty Inteational and the Swiss Refugee Aid have summed it all up and decided for a critical ‘yes’.

Vote with a double meaning

The vote is about saying 'yes' – despite all justified criticism – to an asylum reform that would be beneficial to those people who are entitled to receive legal protection under Swiss asylum law. This group currently accounts for around 60% of all asylum applicants.

However, the vote is also about setting a political agenda. It is about whether a 'no' vote would actually support the very ‘un-Swiss’ all-or-nothing policy of the Swiss People’s Party that leads this referendum; or whether a 'yes' vote would strengthen those forces from left to right who are convinced that in the face of the humanitarian refugee crisis, our politicians have to solve problems in Switzerland – not create them.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of swissinfo.ch.

Opinion series
swissinfo.ch publishes op-ed articles by contributors writing on a wide range of topics – Swiss issues or those that impact Switzerland. The selection of articles presents a diversity of opinions designed to enrich the debate on the issues discussed

The revised asylum law, which will be up for a vote on June 5, sends the wrong signals and makes Switzerland even more attractive for immigrants, says Sandra Sollberger, a member of the House of Representatives for the Swiss People’s Party.

By Sandra Sollberger

Switzerland needs more systematic border controls as well as an improved system to repatriate illegal immigrants, she argues.

True refugees, who have to fear for their lives and limbs, should certainly receive aid and protection - there is no question about that. It corresponds to Switzerland’s long-standing humanitarian asylum tradition, which we certainly want to keep up.

When it comes to illegal migrants and economic refugees though, we simply have no space for them.

Our country must not and caot become more attractive for illegal migrants and economic refugees; however, by offering asylum seekers unconditional pro bono legal services, we actually achieve the opposite. This goes just too far and sends the wrong signals. The fact that the revised law entitles the federal govement to carry out expropriations in order to build asylum centres is equally unacceptable.

Under the revised asylum law parliament adopted last year, the following provisions will be made: all asylum seekers, including illegal economic and social refugees, will be entitled to receive pro bono legal services unconditionally.

This will put them in a better position than any Swiss citizen. Such a provision will not only contradict the principle of equality laid down in the Swiss Constitution, it will also lead to numerous appeals, higher costs within the asylum system and an even laxer implementation of our asylum law.

For the construction of new asylum centres, the federal govement will be entitled to expropriate the land and buildings of cantons, communities as well as private persons. Under this new law, the property rights as well as the autonomy of cantons and communities, which are also laid down in our constitution, will be thrown out of the window.

The revision will allow more migrants to stay in our country, regardless of whether their lives are at risk or not. But it does not make any provisions to facilitate expelling applicants whose applications have been rejected. On the contrary, an increasing number of applicants who have been denied asylum will stay in the country. It is becoming increasingly difficult to expel them. The authorities are more conceed with arriving migrants and less with consistently executing legal regulations.

Switzerland still attractive

Last year, around 40,000 people applied for asylum in Switzerland. The number of applications has only been higher in three other years: in 1991 during the Balkans War, as well as in 1998 and 1999 during the war in Kosovo. Nowadays, most applicants come from Eritrea, North Africa or Afghanistan. Asylum seekers from these countries usually don’t have to fear for their lives and limbs. There are mainly economic and social migrants!

The present revision does not support the fight against abuse. On the contrary, it makes Switzerland even more attractive for illegal immigrants. Pro bono legal services are not the only pull; Switzerland also offers a comprehensive healthcare system, social services and free language courses at the expense of Swiss taxpayers.

Solving the implementation problem

Switzerland must pursue an independent humanitarian asylum policy that does not allow abuse. The Schengen Agreement has made effective border controls a thing of the past. We can no longer afford such open borders and we need to reintroduce systematic controls. This is the only way to stop illegal migrants and get rid of smuggling rings.

We must make Switzerland less attractive for illegal immigrants as well as introduce an effective system for the repatriation of pure economic refugees and other illegal migrants. The current applicable law offers a sufficient basis to achieve that, however, implementation is the problem. For this reason, we have to force the relevant authorities to act consistently and lawfully – and a way to achieve this is to reject the revised asylum law.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of swissinfo.ch.

Opinion series
swissinfo.ch publishes op-ed articles by contributors writing on a wide range of topics – Swiss issues or those that impact Switzerland. The selection of articles presents a diversity of opinions designed to enrich the debate on the issues discussed.

The Sihlfeld cemetery is the largest continuous green space in downtown Zurich. It was built in 1877 as the city’s first denomination-neutral cemetery.

Measuring 200,000 square metres, it is open 365 days a year. The cemetery contains 10,600 plots and there are some 245 burials every year. These days 90% of the deceased in Switzerland are cremated.

The first two crematoriums in Switzerland were installed at the Sihlfield cemetery. In 1890, the poet Gottfried Keller was one the first prominent people to be cremated there. The crematoriums have been out of use since 1992 and now serve as rooms for funeral services.

In addition to being a last resting place for the dead, the cemetery is also being increasingly used for the living. It serves as a recreational area suitable for cultural and educational activities, and as a backdrop for movie and theatre performances.

Even in Switzerland, Donald Trump has been the media darling of this United States presidential election. A swissinfo.ch exclusive analysis of the Swiss press shows the presumptive Republican nominee generating more headlines than any other candidate in the primaries.

A look at the number of articles referencing each candidate from the top Swiss papers by circulation shows a clear focus on Trump and Hillary Clinton, considered the respective Republican and Democratic frontruers. And even Switzerland’s own president, Joha Schneider-Amma, couldn’t top Trump in terms of media mentions.

Meanwhile, coverage of Democratic candidate Beie Sanders – the wier of the Democrats Abroad primary in Switzerland – waned slightly after early primary contests.

And John Kasich and Ted Cruz, the other Republican candidates who at one point tried to unite to beat Trump before exiting the race, got much less coverage in Switzerland than Clinton or Trump.

The Trump question

Deciding how to cover Trump has become a challenge for joualists after the media so grossly misjudged his potential.

“The American press just underestimated him so much, and it’s strange how they were always so wrong,” says Sacha Batthyany, US correspondent for Zurich's Tages-Anzeiger newspaper. He also admits to writing a piece calling Trump a flash in the pan.

The Tages-Anzeiger’s approach to Trump coverage has changed over the course of the primaries, according to Batthyany.

“In the begiing, because his insults were new and his style was new, I wrote about them because I thought it was all he had to offer,” he says. “But after a while we said no, we won’t do it anymore.”

“Now I ask myself, is it important enough, does it explain something bolder? Is it just rumors? It is a small detail that Trump said this or that to someone? If it shows a bigger picture, then I would consider it.”

That’s not to say it isn’t still tempting to jump on every Trump twist and tu, like much of the American press.

“It’s easy to do Trump stories, you know you have an audience,” Batthyany says. “Everything is there.”

“We try to balance the coverage among the candidates, but with Trump it’s difficult [to hold back] because it is fascinating.”

Delhi has around 84,000 licensed cycle rickshaw drivers but there are probably many more such vehicles plying the streets

(Keystone)

Former slum-dweller Sohan Lal used to drive a three-wheeled rickshaw on the chaotic streets of New Delhi. Love brought him to Switzerland, and he now ferries tourists around the Swiss capital Be in an e-rickshaw.

It is a perfect spring afteoon in Be with clear skies and abundant sunshine. The city’s railway station area is buzzing with human and vehicle traffic as the work day comes to an end. Amidst the orderly crowd, stands a vehicle that looks like nothing else around - a cycle-rickshaw.

It belongs to 39-year-old Lal who came to Switzerland from India a little over ten years ago. He offers swissinfo.ch a ride and a glimpse of the Swiss city he now calls home.

Watch 360° video (Drag screen around to choose what you want to see)

Young entrepreneur

Lal was bo in a Delhi slum - known locally as “jhuggis” - to parents who left their village in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh in search of better prospects. But his father became mentally ill and his mother was forced to work as a construction labourer to support Lal and his five siblings.

“She would ea around INR10 [CHF0.14 or CHF1 at the-then exchange rate] a day after working for around nine hours carrying 20 bricks at a time up ten-storied buildings under construction,” he told swissinfo.ch.

Lal did not go to school. To help out he was forced work as a shoeshine boy from the age of nine. He’ll never forget the incident that changed his life.

“A German tourist came up to me to get his shoes shined,” says Lal. “After I finished, he gave me 50 rupees and left, which was 50 times more than what I was charging.”

That stroke of good fortune prompted a realisation that he could make more money by focusing on foreign visitors to Delhi. Instead of staying put in one spot like other shoeshine boys, he travelled around looking for generous overseas tourists. He also picked up English by overhearing their conversations and interacting with them, as well as spending some of his hard-eaed cash watching Hollywood movies in cinemas.

Soon he had saved enough money to buy a cycle rickshaw and later even upgrade to a motorised autorickshaw. As a rickshaw driver, he continued his strategy of targeting foreign travellers by wiing them over with his charm and basic English knowledge. He would then direct them to travel agencies in retu for a commission.

“If the tourists booked a holiday with the travel agency, I would get a 50% commission,” he says. “I made a lot of money this way.”

In a matter of a few years, he had saved up enough to purchase a couple of second-hand taxis and start his own travel agency. But he didn’t stop driving his rickshaw.

“I would use the rickshaw to find clients for my travel business,” he says. “Instead of taking a cut from travel agencies like before, I would offer them chauffeur-driven tours in my own taxis.”

Swiss miss

Money was no longer a cause for worry for Lal. But another chance meeting with a foreigner would once again change his life. In 2001, he met a 19-year-old Swiss girl called Nadia at Coaught Circus, a famous shopping centre in the heart of Delhi.

“I knew she was the one for me even before I even spoke to her,” he says. “But she was fed up with India, as every person who approached her either wanted money or to sell her something.”

Lal invited her, along with her brother and a friend, for a cup of tea. Something clicked and Lal and Nadia visited each other in Switzerland and India for a couple of years until they decided to get married in 2004.

“I came to Switzerland with a suitcase and CHF300,” says Lal. “I spoke no German and had to start all over again.”

He worked at a number of odd jobs like washing dishes in restaurants or cleaning cars in garages. Anything he could find.

“There are no bad jobs but the toughest one I did was packing meat at a slaughterhouse,” he says. “It was tough to see the animals being killed.”

In 2012, his wife spotted a job ad looking for someone physically fit and ready to make their own money. Lal followed it up and ended up becoming a rickshaw driver. These e-rickshaws appear futuristic when compared to their Indian cousins, which are little more than bicycles with a seat at the back. With an aerodynamic shape, lightweight polyethylene cabin and a 48 volt motor powered by a lithium-ion battery, it is easier to tackle hills and heavy clients on an e-rickshaw.

The company that owned the rickshaws sold advertisement space on them and drivers could keep any money they made after deducting a sum for daily rental of the vehicle. Lal began making so much money that the company offered him a job contract. However, just as things were looking up Lal had a falling out with the company owners and found himself without a job.

“I bought a rickshaw from Germany but couldn’t use it due to obstacles from my old employers who wanted to preserve their monopoly,” he says.

Bouncing back

Lal was forced to sell his imported rickshaw at a loss. He borrowed money from friends to purchase a second-hand rickshaw already registered in Switzerland but couldn’t raise enough cash. However, thanks to a crowdfunding campaign he managed to collect CHF6,300 and buy his rickshaw.

He now makes a decent living with between his rickshaw business and working in a restaurant as a ruer. While his professional life may not sound glamorous, he has become a sort of minor celebrity in Be, especially after being featured in local newspapers. Shopkeepers and restaurant workers wave to him as he passes by.

“I am not a hero but people like me here and it makes me want to stay,” he says.

He now has a Swiss passport and is a father of two daughters aged five and seven.

While most of his clients are Swiss, he gets a fair share of Indian tourists, particularly couples on their honeymoon.

“They begin with a one hour tour but often end up hiring me for four hours,” says Lal.

But not all his Indian clients are fans. Some of them look down on him, as driving a rickshaw is viewed as a lowly job in India.

“In Switzerland people look at you as a person and all jobs are respected here,” he says.

Despite the physical demands of driving a rickshaw and the competition he faces from his former employer tued rival, Lal has no regrets.

“I started from zero and am now a happy man despite the difficulties,” he says. “Even if I am still a rickshaw driver, I love this job as I get to meet a lot of people from different countries.”

Rickshaws in Switzerland

Entrepreneurs in the Swiss tourism sector have embraced the opportunities offered by these three wheelers. Swiss cities like Zurich, Geneva, Be, Basel, Thun and Biel offer rickshaw taxi services and tours and some are equipped with iPod audioguides. For a really cheesy Swiss experience, tourists can even opt to have a fondue in one.

Most of the e-rickshaws are imported from Germany and have to be authorised by local officials for use in Switzerland. Rickshaws equipped with electric motors are considered as motorcycles and caot travel on pedestrian or one-way streets. The vehicles have to insured and drivers also need a permit to park their vehicles in taxi stands.

The cartoon of the week is a new series at swissinfo.ch. Cartoonist Marina Lutz has worked with different Swiss media as a caricaturist, including the Nebelspalter satirical magazine. Lutz has won several awards for her work, notably during the Fumetto inteational cartoon festival.

Click through to see the different images.

Links

British Prime Minister David Cameron says he is campaigning with all his "heart and soul" for Britain to stay in the European Union

What could a Brexit mean for the United Kingdom’s higher education, research and student mobility? Switzerland offers some clues.

The stakes are high as the UK prepares to hold a so-called Brexit referendum on June 23 on whether to stay or leave the European Union. The two sides remain divided.

In the leave camp Scientists for Britain argue that the UK could gain all the scientific benefits of EU membership from outside the bloc. It highlights countries like Switzerland and Israel, which are associated states rather than full members and yet have proper access to EU research programmes.

But opponents wa a Brexit could have serious consequences. In March, physicist Stephen Hawking and over 150 fellows of the Royal Society, the UK’s premier scientific institution, wrote to The Times newspaper saying a Brexit would be a ‘disaster for UK science’. They also use Switzerland as an example.

‘Switzerland pays into the EU and was a popular destination for young scientists. It now has limited access to EU funds… and is desperately trying to find alteative ways to attract young talent,’ their letter waed.

Switzerland has had bilateral treaties with the EU in place since 2002 goveing everything from Schengen to science. But ever since the February 9, 2014 vote to re-introduce quotas for EU citizens to live and work in Switzerland, the nation’s relationship with the 28-nation bloc has been under pressure and Swiss universities and higher education institutions have had to cope with life on the side lines.

After the vote, the EU temporarily suspended talks with Switzerland over its participation as an associated country in the union's prestigious Horizon 2020 science research (worth €80 billion) and Erasmus+ student mobility programmes.

Following feverish negotiations and federal funds, Switzerland managed to eventually hang on to its places via a ‘partial agreement’ with the EU (see infobox below). But it has until the end of the year before this temporary accord runs out.

Swiss tribulations

The impact of these abrupt changes has been considerable, say officials.

“It’s meant uncertainty about the future, reduced participation in research programmes, more difficult administration and it has almost completely killed the ability of Swiss partners to take a coordinating role in European research programmes,” said Michael Hengartner, rector of Zurich University and president of swissuniversities, the body which oversees Swiss higher education establishments.

According to the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Iovation (SEFRI), over the past two years the share of Swiss research projects in European programmes has fallen from 3.2% to 1.8%. The drop is even bigger for Swiss-coordinated projects: down from 3.9% to 0.3%.

Jean-Luc Barras, head of the Swiss National Science Foundation’s Inteational Cooperation Division, said uncertainty, especially within European research consortiums, was the main problem.

Over the past two years consortiums tended to believe that having a Swiss researcher on board was a drawback, as they fear the person may not get funding or may negatively influence an evaluation, he explained.

To ensure continued participation in Erasmus+, the Swiss govement stepped in financially to the tune of CHF72 million ($75million). The numbers of students taking part has picked up after a slide in 2014, which hit mostly professional training and further education. But they have not retued to the previous levels.

To regain full association status with the EU and end the highly damaging exclusion from some EU research agreements, the Swiss must jump through several hoops. In March of this year the govement aounced it had agreed with Brussels on a treaty extending the free movement of people to Croatia, which had been on hold for two years.

While the protocol signing sends a positive signal to Brussels, a majority of parliament still has to back it – the House of Representatives said yes on April 26. The EU remains clear, however: only when the Croatia protocol comes into effect can Switzerland regain full association - and access to full funding.

The Swiss cabinet has said it will only ratify it once a definitive solution is found regarding the free movement of persons between the EU and Switzerland.

Swiss scientists are hopeful a way can be found out of this mess, but the matter could drag on next year.

Brexit impact

Seen from afar, Brexit opponents view Switzerland’s tribulations with conce, arguing that the UK may find it hard to leave the EU while retaining access to key programmes in research and student mobility.

Gaétan Lagger, SEFRI’s interim head of inteational cooperation, said he fully understands UK scientists’ worries: “Competitiveness is in danger and there is a risk of marginalisation.”

But he added that if there was sufficient financial, political and ideological interest, solutions could be found for inteational exchange programmes.

Barras, meanwhile, felt a Brexit could quickly have a negative impact: “People are very mobile and science is linked to reputation and having the best people and best discoveries and publications. Being part of the European research area and being fully active via the framework programme can prevent this.”

The absence of UK scientists would have a wider knock-on effect for inteational research, lowering the overall level, he added.

Hengartner was more circumspect. In the event of a Brexit, there is no reason the UK could not move from being a full EU member to being an associate country, like Switzerland used to be before 2014, he commented.

“As an associate country you have many of the rights as full members so the question will be how quickly you can negotiate membership. I assume both sides would want that. Switzerland lived quite comfortably with associate country status. But you are not part of the decision-making bodies,” argued the Zurich rector.

And a country like the UK could find the transition much harder.

“I'm convinced their leadership position will be threatened by a Brexit, just like our leadership position has been following the February 9 vote,” said Hengartner. “But what does this mean? Will the University of Cambridge fall from being number one or two to being number 200 in Europe? No. But it'll be a bit like being in a boxing match with one hand tied behind your back. You're still competing but it's much, much harder to win.”

“Partial association”

Under the current partial association agreement, researchers in Switzerland can participate as equal partners in the first pillar of Horizon 2020, called Excellent Science, which is aimed at boosting European research and includes the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) grants. Switzerland will be contributing an estimated €400 million (CHF481 million) to these programmes until the end of 2016, according to the EU.

However, for the second and third pillars: Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges, Switzerland remains a ‘third country’ in EU eyes, like the United States or Japan. This means scientists can still join European collaborative projects, but they will not be entitled to any direct EU funding for their part.

The compromise came into effect on September 15, 2014. After 2016, Switzerland will either be fully associated to Horizon 2020 or it will only be able to participate as a third country. This depends on the political process in Switzerland and negotiations with the EU.

On average, election to the House of Representatives now carries a minimum workload of 50%

(Keystone)

The Swiss often claim to have one of the most inexpensive parliaments in the world. But how do Swiss politicians fare financially compared with other countries? swissinfo.ch did a quick investigation.

The issue of parliamentarians’ salaries and how they make a living is a regular talking point. Recently, Zug senator Joachim Eder suggested that parliamentarians should no longer be paid an accommodation allowance if they are not actually away from home when they are attending a legislative session. A few months earlier, parliamentarian Hans Grunder filed a parliamentary initiative – not yet debated – in which he called for terms of office to be limited to prevent the legislature from gradually becoming “a parliament of professionals”.

Over the past few decades, while remaining part-time – organised so that members can exercise other jobs in parallel – the Swiss parliament has become much more professional. On average, election to the House of Representatives now carries a minimum workload of 50%, or 70% for the Senate.

Italy tops ranking

The pay system for Swiss parliamentarians allows anyone who wishes to focus exclusively on politics without much worry about having enough money at the end of the month. Every politician receives an aual salary of CHF26,000 ($26,806), to which is added a daily allowance of CHF440 for every day the house, its committees or parliamentary groups are sitting. On average this daily allowance means an aual sum of not less than CHF40,000 for every representative*. In other words, without even counting reimbursement of expenses, a Swiss parliamentarian has an aual pay of about CHF66,000 (or €60,000).

Is this a lot? Or not much? Actually, it ranks close to the average salary in the country – €50,300 in 2014, according to OECD data. But Swiss politicians ea a lot less than some of their counterparts in other countries. In Italy, an elected member of the Chamber of Deputies has a fixed salary three times the size of his or her Swiss counterpart. Between allowances and expenses, an Italian deputy can gross more than €165,000 a year, while an ‘ordinary’ citizen has an average salary five times lower (€30,600).

If you compare average salaries with those of parliamentarians, the best-off politicians are the Brazilians, who ea ten times more than the man on the street. Spanish politicians are a notable exception, their fixed remuneration being just about the same as the eaings of the average Spaniard, and the lowest in Weste Europe.

(swissinfo.ch)

With extras, salary may double

Parliamentary salary is just one component of politicians’ pay cheques. Taking account of the various expenses reimbursed – impossible to sum up in a chart, the systems vary so much between different countries – their aual pay may as much as double.

This is the case in Switzerland. Owing to allowances for meals, accommodation and travel, as well as an aual allowance of CHF33,000 to cover costs of staff and materials, an elected representative manages to ea at least another €50,000 a year, for a total amount of €110,000. This holds true even if he or she does not hire a personal assistant. The allowance is paid as a lump sum, no receipts being required, unlike in other countries.

In Italy, every parliamentarian gets up to €62,000 a year to cover expenses. Apart from reimbursement for costs of staff (requiring receipts, but only 50%), telephone and transfer costs, Italian deputies have a pass for free rail, sea and air travel within the country, and perks like a free hairdresser (or hairdressers – there are actually four of them) working in the parliament building.

The Germans, French and British don’t do badly, either. In Germany, every Bundestag member gets €52,000 a year as a lump sum reimbursement of expenses, and €250,000 a year to cover staff salaries. Unlike Italy, the administration of the Bundestag pays these salaries directly, not the deputy. In France the allowance to cover politicians’ costs is worth some €70,000 a year, while for staff they can get €114,000. And, of course, free first class train travel and up to 80 flights within France.

Big spenders in USA

In Britain, apart from a lump sum payment for expenses of €14,500 a year, each member can claim all expenses to do with parliamentary work. On average, this comes to €115,000 a year. Britain is now one of the most transparent countries on this score: all the expense claims from every member of parliament can be seen on a website. The British govement was forced to take action in 2009, after a press investigation exposed dubious use of taxpayers’ money by members of the House of Commons.

This transparency is also the rule in the US, but it does not stop American politicians from being first when it comes to reimbursement of expenses for staff, travel and supplies. Apart from their aual salary of €153,000, representatives can afford to spend lavishly: in 2012, every member received on average €1.15 million. So compared to their counterparts abroad, the 246 members of the Swiss parliament have some way to go before they can be denounced as big spenders.

* For the inteational analysis we took into consideration only members of lower houses and not senates. We did not take account of additional offices held by elected politicians: in some countries a party leader in the house gets higher pay than an ordinary member.

European parliament

All members of the European parliament get the same pay, according to a provision since 2009. A Bulgarian member gets the same salary as a British member, although the cost of living is quite different in those two countries.

Since the begiing of July 2015, every parliamentarian has been getting €8,213 per month gross (€98,556 per aum).

There is in addition to a monthly allowance of €4,230 for expenses (€50,760 a year).

A member eas at least €149,316 a year in total.

Furthermore, the European parliament pays a lump sum of €306 for a day’s attendance and reimburses travel claims against receipts.

What does London’s election of Sadiq Khan, a Muslim, and son of Pakistani migrants, as mayor mean for Europe amidst the prevailing anti-Muslim sentiment existing across the continent?

By Marta Dominguez Diaz

The event has been considered “a piece of history” with Khan being regarded as the first and most powerful Muslim politician in Europe.

Historically speaking, the novelty of the event is a construct that reinforces the view that Europe holds a united identity because it has historically been Christian (and additionally, implicitly white). This supposedly cohesive identity is currently facing deep challenges, the narrative goes, due to effects brought about by recent waves of migration.

This construct however is not new and faces a problem not only for what we think about Islam (and Judaism), but also for what we think Europe was and is.

The Ottoman influence

Islam has historically been a fundamental part of Europe, or at least of its Southe and Easte regions for long time. Significant parts of the Iberian Peninsula were under Muslim rule between the 8^th and the 16^th centuries. Sicily was ruled by Muslims between the 9^th and the 11^th centuries and Greece was aexed by the Ottoman Empire from the mid-15^th century and until 1832. Ottoman influence has also been relevant in Hungary and Albania.

Today, a part of Turkey, and significantly, Istanbul as a major European capital, is in its majority, Muslim. Furthermore, Islam has been and remains a fundamental part of the religious landscape of the Balkans, a region where religious crosspollinations have been the rule rather than the exception. Ivo Komšić, the current mayor of the predominantly Muslim Sarajevo, is Catholic.

London, although being one of Europe’s cities with a larger Muslim presence, is nonetheless a place where Muslims represent only 12.4% of the total population. That means that many Londoners have elected a politician whose religious orientation does not coincide with that of their own. It is good to remember, however, that this is not novel either. Rotterdam, a city in which Muslims approximately represent a quarter of the population, has had a Moroccan-bo Muslim mayor since 2009.

What is then so original about Sadiq Khan’s election?

Sadiq Khan’s Muslimness has been used by its adversaries to try to deprecate him. His Conservative opponent, Zac Goldsmith, has attempted to build a coection between Khan and Jihadi Muslims, basing his accusations on Khan, a former human rights lawyer, defending Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in a court case. Khan’s Islam faith has also received critiques from within the Labour Party, and of course, from Islamists who see in his liberalism flawed religious credentials.

Although hardline positions on Islam and immigration have been used by right-wing parties across Europe for a number of years now, from France’s National Front to Germany’s Alteative für Deutschland, what is unprecedented is using religious adherence and not simply religion, as a mechanism to denigrate a contender. This is worrying for religious freedom, because it is not even the supposed effect Islam is believed by some to have in individuals or communities, but it is the simple fact of being a Muslim that is deemed as wrong.

The positive side of Islam

Other significant novelties in Khan’s case are also worth noting. The widespread negative reaction to these tactics is also unprecedented. There has been furious criticism of the attacks within the Conservative and Labour parties and by the wider public.

Additionally, Islam has only been taken as denigrator and not an asset of Khan’s position. Islam is seen as diminishing rights rather than as an inspiration to advance them. This also tells us something important about how Islam is viewed by Europeans. Thus, none of the characteristics in Khan’s ‘savoir-faire’ and in his programme - his promise to tackle the housing crisis and rocketing transport fares, as well as his vision for a greener and safer London - are seen as coected to his Islam, a system of values after all, but almost, in spite of Islam.

His supporters, in contraposition to his detractors, have not played ‘the Islam card’ but rather, the one of class, by arguing, the new mayor is the quintessence of the Muslim immigrant success story. This factor, although new, surprises no one, as secularism constitutes a foundational principle of Europe’s liberal left and the use of religious affiliation in political terms would from that perspective be seen as a violation of the principle of secularism.

Khan himself only speaks about his Muslim identity when confronted in very direct ways. But when he does so, he has been smart enough as to use it to elaborate on a new, more constructive way of looking at Huntington’s ‘Us (Westeers) versus Them (Muslims)’ paradigm.

In an interview given to the Times Magazine, when questioned on whether he as a Muslim felt an extra responsibility to tackle religious extremism, Khan replied: “Being someone who is a Muslim brings with it experiences that I can use in relation to dealing with extremists […] it’s really important that I use my experiences to defeat radicalisation and extremism […] I am the West, I am a Londoner, I’m British, I’m of Islamic faith, Asian origin, Pakistani heritage, so whether it’s [Islamic State] or these others who want to destroy our way of life and talk about the West, they’re talking about me.”

In Europe’s times of increasingly tense relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, we can only hope that this genuine way of shifting the terms of the ‘clash’ is, at least, partially responsible for his victory. As Homa Khaleeli wrote for the Guardian: “Sadiq Khan’s victory won’t end Islamophobia, but it offers hope.”

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of swissinfo.ch

Opinion series
swissinfo.ch publishes op-ed articles by contributors writing on a wide range of topics – Swiss issues or those that impact Switzerland. The selection of articles presents a diversity of opinions designed to enrich the debate on the issues discussed.

The Panama Papers show Switzerland was among the top five countries using financial middlemen to set up offshore companies with a Panama law firm. The data leak has shed light on controversial practices for concealing money.

We have mapped here all intermediaries worldwide linked to the Panama Papers.

While the use of offshore entities is not in itself illegal, the revelations from the Panama Papers have already resulted in a raid by Swiss prosecutors on European football’s goveing body UEFA and an official investigation by the authorities in Geneva.

On Monday, the Inteational Consortium of Investigative Joualists (ICIJ) put a database online with documents linked to the Panama Papers scandal. The database does not contain all the 11.5 million files leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca. For privacy reasons, the ICIJ has decided to not disclose documents such as phone numbers, financial transactions or passports.

But it does contain all the 214,000 offshore companies administrated at some point by Mossack Fonseca between 1977 and 2015, and more than 14,000 "intermediaries" that acted as middlemen to set up offshore companies. Intermediaries were typically law firms dealing with Mossack Fonseca to create an offshore firm for a client.

Hong Kong (4,902), the United Kingdom (2,106) and the United States (1,540) had the largest number of intermediaries to have dealt at some point with the firm. Switzerland played an important role with at least 1,339, and its intermediaries were particularly active, as illustrated in the chart below. They helped set up more than 34,000 offshore companies with Mossack Fonseca alone.

The Swiss tax man is taking a closer look at the content of the new Panama Papers database.

Patrick Teuscher, a spokesman for the Swiss Federal Tax Administration, told Swiss public radio, SRF, on Tuesday that the content was ‘interesting’, especially information on taxpayers who had Swiss residence or economic ties to Switzerland.

Teuscher said federal officials were cross-checking information on those registered and their links to Switzerland. Any follow-up would be carried out with cantonal tax offices, he added.

The method and code used to analyse and create the above map is described in this post

The introduction of an unconditional basic income for all would have a negative effect on the labour market and vocational training, says Rudolf Minsch, chief economist at the Swiss business federation, economiesuisse. He says it would threaten the cohesion of society and ruin Switzerland’s financial sector.

By Rudolf Minsch

Rolling around in CHF 0.05 coins on Be’s parliament square and handing out CHF10 notes for free in Zurich’s main station: the advertising campaign for an unconditional basic income certainly promises the Swiss a golden future.

The notion behind the initiative is that if people are financially secure, they can look after the important things in life and develop their talents. In this way, they would not just help themselves but would also enrich society.

So far, this is utopia. Neither individuals nor society work like the initiators would like us to imagine.

If the state were to guarantee everyone a monthly income, which would - as stated in the initiative proposal - enable them to “have a humane existence and participate in public life”, it would tu our attitude to work upside down.

The rule that every adult is basically responsible for their own subsistence would be nullified for the first time in human history.

There will certainly be some who would use this new financial freedom responsibly - maybe invest it in further training or in starting up their own company.

But it would be tempting to go into a different direction though. Why not shift down a gear or two? Or simply throw in the towel if an exhausting project comes up? Part-time work would no longer be worth it. Employees who did not receive rather more than the intended basic income of CHF 2,500 would simply stay at home.

Young people

For the future of young people, a basic income would be outright irresponsible as they would have less incentive to enter the labour market.

So the benefit of doing a long and possibly very tiring vocational training would be significantly reduced if, while doing so, you could still enjoy hobbies without being put under financial pressure.

For this reason, a basic income also creates a moral dilemma: is our society really willing to finance the livelihood of people who do not want to contribute to our society, even though they could? This has nothing to do with solidarity. In the end, such an antisocial system would threaten the cohesion of society.

On this issue, the current initiative is different from all other projects that have been launched regarding the introduction of an unconditional basic income.

Some Dutch cities have paid selected single social welfare recipients a monthly basic income of €900 (CHF 990) since the begiing of this year. If such a monthly payment substitutes other social welfare benefits, it could very well make sense. It is not a general basic income for everyone though.

The Fiish govement is pondering similar ideas: it wants to introduce a basic income of €800 to take some burden off its social welfare system and reduce bureaucracy. This is, however, a pretty radical austerity programme.

In Switzerland, the system would be very different as the monthly basic income of CHF2,500 per adult and CHF625 per child would lead to horrendous extra costs.

The initiative’s backers also want to abolish large parts of our social welfare system. But social welfare payments exceed the plaed basic income in many cases. This is the reason why we would have to keep our social welfare system and the bureaucracy that goes with it. Would you want a severely disabled person to make ends meet with CHF2,500 per month? Or would it be fair if unemployment was no longer properly insured?

Business world

In order to finance their vision, the initiative’s supporters want to either significantly raise value-added tax or introduce a financial transaction tax.

Both proposals would have detrimental consequences for the Swiss business sector, which is currently extremely competitive and cosmopolitan.

We are already living on an island of high prices – a significantly higher value-added tax would increase shopping tourism, putting many small and medium-sized companies out of business. If introduced on a national level, the financial transaction tax would ruin the Swiss financial sector.

For this reason, the gamble the initiative backers are getting involved in is pretty risky. In reality, the golden circle they have printed on their posters is a big black hole.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of swissinfo.ch.

Opinion series
swissinfo.ch publishes op-ed articles by contributors writing on a wide range of topics – Swiss issues or those that impact Switzerland. The selection of articles presents a diversity of opinions designed to enrich the debate on the issues discussed.

More long-distance bus companies are operating on European routes. They are a serious competitor to trains. (SRF, swissinfo.ch)

Private long-distance bus providers have been steadily increasing their European network and passengers now have a bigger choice of how to travel in Europe.

Statistics from the Swiss Federal Office of Transport show a fourfold increase over the past five years in licences awarded for routes, from 64 to 266.

Customers are attracted by much lower prices, direct coections and shorter travelling times.

That's bad news for the Swiss Federal Railways which is finding it hard to compete with the cheaper fares.

In one example, a bus company providing direct coections between Zurich and Munich in Germany charges CHF18-48. For the same route, a full-fare train ticket costs CHF92 for a trip that takes 30 minutes longer.

Exactly half a milleium after the idea first surfaced in Thomas More’s influential Utopia, Switzerland will hold the world’s first nationwide vote on whether to provide an unconditional - also referred to as universal - basic income (UBI) for all.

The work of fiction and political philosophy, first published in Latin in 1516, mentioned the UBI as a possible way to reduce thievery. A decade later, More’s friend, Johaes Ludovicus Vives, was the first to work out a detailed proposal. His memo to the mayor of Bruges in 1526 triggered the first such practice in the Flemish community of Ypres.

“It’s really about helping the poor,” Florian Schui, an economic historian at the University of St Gallen, said of the origins of an idea especially important since the end of the Middle Ages. The tenor of the debate has changed since then.

“Much of this basic income debate is not so much about actually changing the amount that people receive, but about rebranding it,” he told swissinfo.ch. “So that it is not (seen as) welfare anymore – but it is a basic human right.”

Since More’s time, the idea evolved in a way reminiscent of former US President John F. Keedy’s remark that “a man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death”.

Today, supporters will hope that the notion of giving every citizen some money regularly finally rises to the level of Victor Hugo’s assertion that “no army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come”.

The general idea is for govements to provide citizens with a basic monthly income, without requiring them to work and regardless of other income, according to the Belgium-based Basic Income European Network (BIEN).

Proponents argue it is the surest and fairest way of relieving poverty and boosting employment. However, there are a variety of options – and sticking points – to work out. These include the exact source of the funds, and whether and how to offset other types of govement assistance, such as social security or welfare benefits.

An idea over time

The idea of the UBI was debated in the 16th and 17th centuries among prominent academics at the School of Salamanca, who grappled with poverty relief and other ramifications of Spain’s colonial expansion in Latin America. In England, the Elizabethan Era’s “poor law” of 1576 provided work for people who wanted it, but could not find a job.

Among French intellectuals conceed with an individual’s right to exist, Montesquieu’s 1748 Spirit of the Laws asserted that a nation “owes all its citizens a secure subsistence, food, suitable clothes and a way of life that does not damage their health”.

English writers Tom Paine and Thomas Spence, conceed with natural rights in the 1790s, advocated the idea of a basic income. Paine’s main conce was for helping the elderly and parents of young children. At the same time, French Marquis de Condorcet argued for it as a form of social insurance to cut poverty and inequality.

Their ideas fed into mode development of Europe’s welfare and social insurance systems, such as pensions and health insurance under Otto von Bismarck, Germany’s first chancellor, from 1871 to 1890. These systems, however, focused more on the notion that a person is entitled to social benefits than to a basic income.

Mode practices

Flash forward to the 1970s, when variations of a universal basic income took root in North America:

• An experiment in Dauphin, Manitoba gave cash to families from 1974 to 1979. Education improved, working hours for new mothers and teenagers dropped, and fewer people suffered work injuries.

• Alaska set up a permanent fund in 1976 that converts the state’s oil revenue into a dividend sent every year to everyone, regardless of age, who has been an official resident for at least six months.

Other recent examples:

• German aid groups sponsored a pilot project that provided cash in a Namibian village from 2008 to 2009. More children went to school and crime dropped. Financial help continued until early 2012.

• Finland’s govement plans to begin a basic income pilot project from January 2017.

• Utrecht, Tilburg and other cities in the Netherlands are experimenting with or considering the idea.

• The Scottish National Party backed the idea to replace the current welfare system and agreed it is worthy of consideration when designing a welfare system for an independent Scotland.

The Swiss vote

In Switzerland, the idea is being tested in a people's initiative that does not specify exactly how much should be given. However, the initiative’s founders would like to see every legal resident get about CHF2,500 ($2,566) a month regardless of other wealth or employment. They propose CHF625 ($641) a month for every child.

The organisers of the initiative staged a pricey publicity stunt in Zurich’s main station in March, handing out CHF10 ($10) notes to crowds of eager commuters during moing rush hour. They say their aim is to allow people to choose how they want to live their own lives, without making choices based on financial necessities.

Schui, the economic historian, said the debate reflects “two fundamentally different strands of thought” toward the poor: Are they responsible for their plight? Alteatively, is the economic system to blame for fewer hours of work to go around?

More’s Utopia reflected a religious view that people have been burdened with work since the Garden of Eden, but that there was no need for it in humankind’s original condition. Since the Industrial Revolution, people have become accustomed to the idea that output can survive or increase with decreasing amounts of labour.

The question, as Schui put it, becomes what to do with that kind of progress.

“I think it’s harking back to the post-war model, that sort of golden age of capitalism, with a very strong growth rate, but a high tax rate, and a generous welfare system,” he said. “I think it’s more nostalgia for the post-war period than it is for Thomas More, or religion.”

After pursuing Swiss banks for helping Americans hide money, the United States has become a magnet for offshore wealth. Family trusts are booming in South Dakota, a remote state with guaranteed secrecy and no tax.

In an old discount store hugging a coer in downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the heirs to the William Wrigley chewing gum fortune have an office for their family trust. So do the Carlson family, owners of the Radisson hotel chain, and the family of John Nash, the late hedge fund giant.

They are among the 40 trust companies sharing an address at 201 South Phillips Avenue, a modest, two-storey white-brick building. Inside, $80 billion (CHF77.5 billion) worth of trust assets are administered.

South Dakota is best known for its vast stretches of flat land and the Mount Rushmore monument, where the heads of four presidents are carved into the Black Hill Mountains. Its population of 858,469 ranks 46th in the country. Locals joke that it has more pheasants - about 1.5 million - than people.

Yet despite its small town feel, Sioux Falls has become a magnet for the ultra-wealthy who set up trusts to protect their fortunes from taxes and future ex-spouses. Assets held in South Dakotan trusts have grown from $32.8 billion in 2006 to more than $226 billion in 2014, according to the state’s division of banking. The number of trust companies has jumped from 20 in 2006 to 86 this year.

The state’s role as a prairie tax haven has gained unwanted attention since the release of the Panama Papers, an investigation by the Inteational Consortium of Investigative Joualists.

The leak of more than 11 million documents from a Panamanian law firm - some of which will be put on to a public database today - has drawn attention to the anonymity that is available in the US.

After years of threatening Swiss and other foreign banks that helped Americans hide their money, the US stands accused of providing similar services for the rest of the world. “America is the new Switzerland,” says David Wilson, partner of Schellenberg Wittmer, a Swiss law firm. “In the industry we have known this for several years.”

The US has a long history of attracting funds from undisclosed foreign sources. In 2011, The Florida Bankers Association told Congress there were hundreds of billions of foreign deposits in US banks because “for more than 90 years the US govement has encouraged foreigners to put their money in US banks by exempting these deposits from taxes and reporting”.

Well behind Switzerland

The Boston Consulting Group estimates that there is $800 billion of offshore wealth in the US, nearly half of which comes from Latin America. That puts it well behind Switzerland’s $2.7 trillion, but it is expected to grow at nearly 6% a year - faster than any rival except Hong Kong and Singapore.

Bruce Zagaris, a Washington-based lawyer at Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe, says the US offshore industry is even bigger than people realise. “I think the US is already the world’s largest offshore centre. It has done a real good job disabling competition from Swiss banks.”

The growth has been fuelled by inteational disclosure rules introduced in 2014 to crack down on tax havens - and adopted almost everywhere except the US, which had introduced its own regulations. But these rules have gaps that preserved the advantages of trusts such as the ones on offer in South Dakota. Rules proposed by the White House last week to force companies to disclose more information about their owners are unlikely to erode those advantages.

Trusts are able to avoid scrutiny under both US and inteational rules as long as the owner appoints a local trustee and a foreign “protector” to direct the trustees. South Dakotan companies actively promote the secrecy offered by opening a trust in the state.

“Many of the offshore jurisdictions are becoming less appealing for inteational families looking for secrecy”, says the website of the South Dakota Trust Company, one of the most prominent. “Consequently, the stability of the US combined with its mode trust laws... may be more appealing to many inteational families than an offshore trust based in a less powerful country.”

Trust leader

Even before the flurry of inteational interest, South Dakota’s trust industry was booming. With no personal or corporate income tax, no limit on “dynasty trusts” and strong asset protection laws - shielding assets from soon-to-be ex-spouses - South Dakota has leapt to the top of aual rankings for the trust industry. Nevada, Delaware and Alaska also compete for accounts.

South Dakota’s inviting legal environment can be traced to the ground floor of the old discount store on Phillips Avenue. Upstairs is the coer office of Pierce McDowell III, the man largely responsible for the state’s renaissance.

Mr McDowell is 58 with a mop of curly hair and a knack for storytelling. (His grandfather, Pierce, whom the family refers to as “P1”, was working at a small South Dakota bank when it was stuck up by John Dillinger’s gang during their crime spree in the 1930s.) He cycles to his office on a fat-tyred bike, even in the snow, when he isn’t flying to New York or Califoia to see clients and advisers.

The SDTC president stresses the importance of relationships to his business’s success and says the families he serves want to protect future generations - not avoid paying taxes.

Mr McDowell has been an evangelist for South Dakota for almost 25 years. In 1993 he wrote an article for Trusts and Estates magazine. In South Dakota, he said, families could employ “the same strategy used by the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts for generations to avoid estate tax”.

The article caught the eye of Al King, then director of Citibank’s trust division in New York, and he recruited Mr McDowell to run the bank’s South Dakota office. The combination of Mr King’s legal contacts and Mr McDowell’s local knowledge catapulted the business. In 2002 the pair struck out on their own, forming SDTC with Mr McDowell in Sioux Falls and Mr King in New York.

The firm does not manage money. They help private trusts meet state requirements, such as having someone in the state serve as a director, establishing office space and carrying out administrative work within state lines. Trust companies are required to have two board meetings a year in the state. Aual fees start at $35,000 “on the low end” and go up.

Criticism

Aspects of the trust industry attracted criticism. States like New York complained about the loss of billions of dollars in business to trust-friendly states as well as the leakage of income tax, which it estimated at $150 million in 2013.

Lawrence Waggoner, a law professor at the University of Michigan, condemns the dynasty trusts pioneered by states like South Dakota as a “folly”. He argues that over time they would be riven by disputes and very difficult to manage. After a few hundred years there would be tens of thousands of beneficiaries. Arranging a meeting would be impossible: even the Rose Bowl football stadium in Califoia would not be large enough to hold them all.

Some analysts question whether the state receives enough from the benefits it provides. In the 2015 fiscal year, South Dakota collected $1.79 million from trust companies. The legislature passed a $4.3 billion state budget last year.

Beie Hunhoff, a Democratic state senator, has proposed imposing a corporate income tax. “We’ve had a lot of trust legislation and a lot of money is moving into South Dakota and they’re benefiting from our tax law,” he says. “That’s one reason I thought we needed a corporate income tax.”

Taking advantage

Andy Holmes relocated from Kansas City last year to help his firm, the Great Plains Trust Company, increase its presence in South Dakota after clients, including celebrities and famous athletes, asked about the state’s benefits.

Great Plains worked with SDTC to lea the ropes, but last year leased a windowless office in a brick and glass building for its two employees. Down the hall is Maroon Trust, which manages the money of Chicago’s Pritzker family. Elsewhere on the floor is a roofing company. They share a receptionist.

Mr Holmes estimates that 90 per cent of the registered trusts in the state “are what I call shell companies where you basically have a PO box or an office and somebody will come here twice a year to have board meetings and meet regulatory requirements. But there’s nobody here with feet on the ground to serve Sioux Falls. We’re trying to take advantage of that.”

'Plaing' not 'tax dodging'

For now, the biggest challenge for the industry, Mr McDowell says, is criticism of the secrecy it can offer. “So much that has been written about this stuff appears to be so sinister,” he says. “All of these tax laws are there for a reason. It’s not about tax dodging, it’s plaing.”

Bret Afdahl, director of the state’s banking division, says the requirements to qualify for a trust have increased, such as having more of a physical presence. Applicants are often tued away. “We’re the chartering authority so if we approve it and something goes wrong we own it,” he says. “From a reputational standpoint no one benefits from having something bad happen.”

There are legitimate reasons to seek secrecy, according to Roderick Balfour, founder of Virtus, a Guesey-based trust company that opened in South Dakota in 2009. He says people have a right to privacy, especially if corruption in their home countries means their data would not be secure. Conces are overblown, he says: “America is never going to be a Panama.”

France and other countries have introduced tough disclosure rules on trusts. In many others there are suspicions that trusts are illegally used to evade tax. Gabriel Zucman, a French economist, estimates that govements lose at least $200 billion a year in evaded taxes from the $7.6 trillion of the world’s financial wealth that is held offshore.

The respite from new reporting rules gained by moving to the US could prove temporary. On Thursday the White House called on Congress to act on “long overdue” proposals to ensure the US is in line with inteational standards. This Thursday, David Cameron, the British prime minister, is hosting a summit where world leaders will be asked to sign a global declaration promising to expose corruption.

'Sitting in the dragon’s mouth'

There might be big risks in using the US to hide money for illegitimate reasons. Mr Wilson likens it to “sitting in the dragon’s mouth”. One law firm that used to promote the benefits of “hiding in plain sight” says its clients are now convinced the US will adopt inteational standards and do not wish to be “taished by association”.

The appeal of moving structures to the US is that it buys time, says Peter Cotorceanu, counsel for Anaford, a Zurich law firm. Any change in US law would depend on the Republicans losing control of the House, he says. He predicts that hundreds of billions of dollars will move to the US. “Most of the money will move this year”, he says, noting that individuals in Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore have until the end of the year to “yank their money out”.

In South Dakota, there is a mixed reaction to the trust industry’s appeal to foreigners. “In a world where it’s very hard to hide ownership or hide assets sometimes the easiest place [is one] no one would normally think of, which is the US,” says Christopher Holtby, co-founder of the Wealth Advisors Trust Company, in Pierre, the state capital.

Since establishing an office in South Dakota in 2009, he has seen signs of change. In 2014 Trident, a Swiss trust company, opened an office in Sioux Falls, he notes. “Why is an inteational firm setting up in South Dakota?,” says Mr Holtby. “I don’t like that inteational lawyers want to come to South Dakota. Generally inteational lawyers never bring anything that’s simple.

“And we like simple.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016

3.26 million EU citizens have signed the European Citizens' Initiative "Stop TTIP".

(Stop TTIP)

Whether on basic income or animal protection, social insurance or basic rights, citizens’ initiatives give the people a voice both in Switzerland and in the EU. And in both political communities, there are discussions about the future of direct democracy.

The European Union has become a bit “Swisser” since April 1, 2012. Since that day more than four years ago, the 500 million citizens of the 28 member states have been able to play a direct role in the EU law-making process. The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is the first ever transnational law enabling direct-democratic participation.

In both cases, the introduction was preceded by concrete social conflicts that cast doubt on the cohesion of the political community. In Switzerland, it was the integration of the largely Catholic ier Swiss cantons in the 1880s. In Europe, citizens’ demands for more direct participation followed negative referendum results on changes to treaties in the 1990s in states like Denmark and Ireland.

After four years of experience in citizens’ initiatives at the European level, it is now possible for the first time to draw comparisons between the two direct-democratic systems.

They originate with the same idea, at least in intent: a social minority should have the right to pose a question to the majority – and to get an answer. From this perspective, the citizens’ initiative laws in the EU and in Switzerland address the political rights of minorities and the right to provoke dialogue on a specific issue from a grassroots level – regardless of whether that suits the ruling majority.

One in three Citizens’ Initiatives ‘made it’

A comparison of the numbers reveals parallels. Over the past four years in Switzerland, 94 citizens’ initiatives were registered. In 28 cases, the committees behind these initiatives failed to collect the necessary 100,000 signatures within the statutory 18 months.

Eight initiatives were withdrawn by their originators. In 26 cases, they got as far as a Switzerland-wide referendum. But citizens and cantons voted in favour of the proposed constitutional changes in just three cases. These were the executive pay initiative (2013), a ban on employment for paedophiles (2014) and an initiative against mass immigration (2014).

Fourteen initiatives are currently being processed by parliament and the govement. After an intensive phase with up to 15 initiatives simultaneously in the pipeline, at the moment there are just four for which the originators are seeking signatures.

So in Switzerland there can be no talk of an “initiative avalanche”, a spectre frequently raised by critics of this form of direct participation.

Interestingly, things look very similar on the EU level. In the last four years, 56 European Citizens’ Initiatives were launched. However the authorities (in this case the European Commission and ultimately the European Court of Justice) denied 20 of them permission to collect signatures.

Sixteen initiatives failed to collect the required number of 1 million signatures from citizens of at least seven member states within 12 months. Eight European Citizens’ Initiatives were withdrawn, and only three actually got as far as finally being presented to the European Commission: the “Right to Water” (2013), “One of Us (stem cells)” (2014), and “Stop Vivisection” (2015). As in Switzerland, on an EU level signatures are currently being collected for just four initiatives. In 2012 and 2013 it was at times more than ten.

Early days in the EU

The citizens’ initiative has clearly lost popularity as an instrument in recent times. The reasons for this are completely different in Switzerland and in Europe. These are very different direct-democratic tools in terms of their strength and function.

While citizens’ initiatives on the federal level in Switzerland have accumulated considerable legal and communicative power, the European Citizens’ Initiatives are still at the fledgling stage. In the past four years in Switzerland, primarily political parties – such as the right-wing conservative Swiss People’s Party – have tried to use the right to initiate legislation as a kind of hammer. They have met with only limited success.

In Europe, by contrast, citizens still haven’t understood properly how much they can achieve with this new transnational civic right.

It’s no wonder that both in Switzerland and Europe, the future of the citizens’ initiative is under debate. In Switzerland, questions of the quality, validity and implementation of plebiscites are at the fore. In Europe, on the other hand, the discussion is primarily about strengthening this new direct chael between citizens and institutions.

At a recent aual European Citizens’ Initiative Day in Brussels, four of six EU institutions said they favour wide-ranging reform of direct democracy in the EU. These were the parliament, the ombudsman, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.

The EU Council (member states) and the EU Commission, however, are blocking reform. In contrast with almost all the other players, they have no interest in strengthening the role of citizens’ initiatives.

Here are the stories we'll be watching in the week of May 9:

Monday

On Monday, the Inteational Consortium of Investigative Joualists (ICIJ) will release another treasure trove of data, following up their publication of the Panama Papers leak. We'll be following the story to see how this new information could impact Switzerland.

Tuesday

On June 5 the Swiss will vote on whether all citizens should receive a universal basic income, regardless of employment status. It may sound like a wild notion, but the idea has been around for 500 years, since Thomas More first proposed it in his book Utopia, as a possible remedy for thievery. On Tuesday we’ll take a look at how the idea of a universal basic income has evolved since 1516.

Wednesday

How much does the average Swiss parliamentarian ea, and how does this compare with counterparts across Europe? Which country has the most transparent system, allowing its citizens to keep tabs on the amount their elected officials are paid and reimbursed? We’ll investigate these questions on Wednesday.

Thursday

The political and economic spheres are in an uproar over Brexit – the upcoming vote on whether the United Kingdom should leave the European Union. What would such a move mean for science? On Thursday we’ll take a look at how Switzerland’s experience with EU relations could provide insights into the potential impact of Brexit on UK research and higher education.

Friday

Hop on up for a tour of Be, seen through the eyes of e-rickshaw driver Sohan Lal, who came to Switzerland from India ten years ago to start a new life. In addition to reading how Lal moved to the Swiss capital with only a suitcase and CHF300 to be with the girl of his dreams, you can see his daily rickshaw route firsthand with the help of a 360° video.

What you may have missed: