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: […]
By tradition, the President of the Swiss Confederation makes his first trip abroad to Austria. On 8 January, he is at the Vienna International Centre. With Yuri Fedotov, Director-General of the UN Office at Vienna and of UNODC, he discusses the return of stolen assets, drug policy, human trafficking and money laundering. Yukiya Amano, Director […]
The first ceremony of the year at the Federal Palace. Alain Berset receives seven new ambassadors in audience. They present the letters accrediting them to the Federal Council. They represent Malaysia (Sharrina Binti Abdullah), Portugal (António Manuel Ricoca Freire), the United Kingdom (Jane Caroline Owen), Argentina (Luis María Kreckler), Georgia (David Jalagania), the Republic of […]
At the Parliament Building, Alain Berset receives the heads of mission accredited to Switzerland. The Apostolic Nuncio, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, presents the New Year greetings; the presidents of both chambers attend. He starts from a paradox: “Our time is a time of contradictions.” Life expectancy, health and education are improving; growth is returning […]
On the eve of the World Economic Forum, Alain Berset brings the European ministers of culture together in Davos, with UNESCO, ICCROM, UN-Habitat, the Council of Europe and the European Union. The theme: building culture, “Baukultur”. For Switzerland, the conference opens the European Year of Cultural Heritage. In his opening speech, he quotes Churchill: “We […]
On 23 January, Alain Berset opens the WEF Annual Meeting with Klaus Schwab, just before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The theme of the year: “Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World”. He calls for 2018 to be “the year of international cooperation and multilateralism” and warns against national withdrawal: if mistrust spreads, the […]
Between two days at the WEF, Alain Berset opens the 53rd Solothurn Film Festival. He quotes Fredi M. Murer: since 1966, every year after Solothurn, one reads that Swiss cinema is in crisis. What crisis in 2018? “Eine Krise der Verunsicherung”, he replies. The speech, “Tiefenscharf und hoch politisch”, asks what role a festival of […]
Last day of the WEF. Alain Berset receives Donald Trump, with Federal Councillors Ignazio Cassis and Johann Schneider-Ammann. On the American side, several cabinet members. On the agenda: economic relations; vocational training, in which the US President takes a personal interest; Switzerland’s protecting power mandate for the United States in Iran; and International Geneva. Before […]
A written message for the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Alain Berset starts from Jean Améry, an Auschwitz survivor tortured by the Gestapo: “Anyone who has been subjected to torture can no longer feel at home in the world.” Switzerland then chairs the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, 31 member states, which has just […]
More than 300 health policy stakeholders gather in Berne around one question: who bears which responsibility for rising costs? The basis for the work: the 2017 report by international experts and its 38 measures, including a binding cap on cost growth by sector and an “experimental article” in the Health Insurance Act (KVG/LAMal) for pilot […]
The first Von Wattenwyl talks of the year. Alain Berset leads the Federal Council delegation, with Doris Leuthard, Ignazio Cassis and Federal Chancellor Walter Thurnherr, facing the party and parliamentary group leaders of the CVP, FDP, SP and SVP. Ignazio Cassis presents the decisions of 31 January on European policy; the discussion covers the scope […]
No President of the Swiss Confederation had ever been to Bangladesh. Alain Berset spends three days there, with two aims: solidarity with a country hosting more than 650,000 Rohingya driven out of Myanmar, and closer relations with the eighth most populous country in the world. On 5 February, he meets President Abdul Hamid and Prime […]
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