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New Year address
1 January 2018
Alain Berset’s first televised address as President of the Swiss Confederation, broadcast on 1 January. The tone is confident: a stable and safe country, a solid economy, thousands of volunteers. He also names the worries: technological change, job security, pensions, reconciling family and work, the cost of health care.
His answer lies in direct democracy: “Wir alle können mitbestimmen, wie wir leben wollen.” He sets out the debates of the year: pensions, relations with Europe, tax justice, equality between women and men, climate. And he makes the case for compromise: “Wer die Minderheiten stärkt, stärkt auch die Schweiz.”
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