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The regulations on the expansion of landfill sites are to be relaxed in Switzerland. The department of Environment Minister Albert Rösti wants to amend an ordinance to this end and has opened a consultation process until mid-April.

With the relaxation, the government wants to address the lack of landfill space for the disposal of non-recyclable waste. The environment ministry said on Thursday that the expansion of existing landfill sites was one way of counteracting the tense situation.

Two popular initiatives calling for a ban on foie gras imports and a ban on fur imports have been submitted to the Federal Chancellery. They have 106,448 and 116,140 signatures respectively.

The two petitions, entitled “Yes to a ban on the import of fur from animals that have been mistreated” and “Yes to a ban on the import of fur products manufactured under conditions of cruelty to animals”, are aimed at preventing animal suffering.

The products in question are banned from being manufactured in Switzerland but are “imported en masse”, as the Swiss Animal Alliance (AAS), which launched the texts in June 2022, pointed out on Thursday. ...

Swiss drugs reglator Swissmedic has authorised a new medicine to treat colds and cases of acute bronchitis in infants and young children. Beyfortus is used to treat respiratory tract diseases caused by the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

The step was taken “after careful consideration”, Swissmedic said on Thursday. It is an important step towards prophylaxis against RS viruses, a common cause of respiratory diseases, a Swissmedic spokesperson told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA. ...

Former Swiss senator and prosecutor Dick Marty died on Thursday aged 78, his party confirmed.

Marty was born in the southern Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, where he served as deputy public prosecutor, then public prosecutor from 1975-1989. He was a member of the Ticino cantonal government from 1989 to 1995. ...

The Swiss have a bleak view of the coming year and expect financial losses, according to a survey. Nevertheless, they do not want to give up their car or holidays.

Almost a third of those surveyed expect to have less money in their wallets and accounts in 2024, price comparison website Comparis said on Thursday. It wrote of a “record level”: in previous years the proportion of those with a negative outlook was between 13% and 18%. ...

Marco Chiesa, president of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, will not stand for re-election at the end of his term of office in March 2024.

“I had a mission. And it has been fulfilled,” said the Ticino native, who was elected party president in 2020.

The People’s Party’s selection committee had already begun its work, Chiesa, 49, said in an interview with CH Media and Corriere del Ticino on Thursday. He was convinced that the time was right for him to step down as party president. “The aim of my term in office was to win the elections and strengthen the politics and values of the People’s Party.” He had succeeded in doing so, he said. ...

The mountain railways in San Bernardino in southeastern Switzerland are back in operation after ten years of standstill.

The re-opening of the ski resort on Wednesday is part of Ticino investor Stefano Artioli’s plan to breathe new life into the ailing holiday resort with investments totalling CHF300 million ($360 million).

The mountain railways and ski lifts in the winter sports resort at the south portal of the San Bernardino tunnel have been out of service since 2012, with the exception of a few beginner lifts in the village. There was no money for the necessary refurbishment. As Artioli’s company San Bernardino Swiss Alps announced on Wednesday, it acquired the lifts last summer and renovated them. ...

Despite inflation, consumers in Switzerland spent more money on Christmas presents in 2023 than in previous years. Cashless payments reached a record level in the run-up to Christmas.

Rising prices did not have a negative impact on this year’s Christmas business. On the contrary: from December 1 to 24, Swiss retailers earned more from cashless payments than ever before, according to an analysis by the news agency AWP based on data from Monitoring Consumption Switzerland going back to 2019. ...

The Swiss government intends to submit proposals to parliament in the spring to ensure that a Credit Suisse-style bank bailout will no longer be necessary in future.

“We must act – we have no other choice,” said Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter in an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) newspaper on Wednesday.

“We must ensure that a major bank can go under without, in the worst case, dragging an entire country into the abyss,” she continued. She will endeavour to ensure that “all the unpleasant questions are really discussed now”. This has nothing to do with hostility towards systemically important banks, but with “our responsibility for the Swiss economy”.

Swiss bank UBS has cut a particularly large number of jobs among global banks in 2023. This was calculated by the Financial Times.

The takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS has led to a reduction of at least 13,000 jobs at the combined bank, the British business newspaper wrote on Tuesday. And further major rounds of redundancies are expected in the coming year. ...

The youth section of the Swiss Social Democrats (JUSO) say they have collected enough signatures for the “Initiative for a Future”.

This calls for an inheritance tax of 50% from a tax-free amount of CHF50 million ($58.5 million) in favour of an ecological restructuring of the economy.

The Swiss electorate will be able to vote on socially fair financing of climate protection, according to a JUSO press release on Wednesday. The party plans to submit its initiative at the beginning of February. It says it has already collected over 130,000 signatures. ...

Most of the confiscated counterfeit Swiss watches come from China and Hong Kong. This year there have also been new payoffs targeting counterfeit Swiss watches in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.

The fight against counterfeit watches is one of the main concerns of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. More than half of the seizures still involve counterfeits from China and Hong Kong. However, this year saw the first results in other important countries: 150,000 watches were confiscated in Saudi Arabia, 62,000 in Turkey and 25,000 in Egypt. ...