Happy Swiss Christmas to everyone!

December 15, 2019, No comments

Goodbye to 2019. It wasn’t a momentous year but there were a few Swiss highlights:

• The national elections produced the biggest change in years, with both the SVP and SP losing seats to the Greens and GLP. The new parliament was younger, greener and less male than ever before.
• But that didn’t make any difference to the Federal Council elections. The same old seven councillors were re-elected en masse. It seems that Swiss glaciers melt faster than Swiss politics changes.
• Not one single people’s initiative was passed in the life of the outgoing parliament. Four years and no victories, not even for the Cow-Horn initiative this year.
• Switzerland finally made it to the Eurovision finals, with Luca Hänni managing an impressive 4th place. A much better song than the actual Dutch winner.
• It was a hot summer: 2nd hottest June ever and 6th hottest July ever. Two heatwaves in one summer isn’t normal but maybe it’s the new norm in Switzerland?
• Stats showed the around 50% of Zalando orders for clothes and shoes are returned. That means over 10 million parcels going around Switzerland purely for that.
• Roger Federer narrowly lost the longest-ever Wimbledon men’s singles final. After four hours and 57 minutes, Djokovic won the final set tie-break.
• Most important of all, the Stade de Suisse in Bern reverted to its original name: Wankdorf. So once again the Young Boys can play with balls at Wankdorf

See you all in 2020.