Swiss State Secretary Livia Leu and the Secretary-General of the European Commission, Ilze Juhansone, have signed a memorandum of understanding for Switzerland to pay a so-called cohesion contribution of CHF1.3 billion ($1.36 billion) to Brussels. C...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is highly unlikely to personally attend a conference in the Swiss city of Lugano next week that will discuss ways to rebuild the war-shattered country. Instead, Zelensky will probably address international dign...

The Swiss authorities have been censured for failing to implement measures that are designed to protect the country’s groundwater. The parliamentary Audit Committee of the House of representatives said on Thursday that only CHF8 million ($8.4 mill...

Switzerland’s central bank is buying lower volumes of foreign currencies to support the franc as it balances the needs of exporters with the rising cost of goods. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) shelled out CHF5.7 billion ($5.9 billion) in the forei...

A trial into a violent clash between the Hells Angels and Bandidos biker gangs outside the Swiss capital in 2019 has resulted in prison sentences of varying lengths. One of the main defendants was given eight years for premeditated attempted murder. ...

A group of Volkswagen dealers in southern Switzerland has been fined CHF44 million ($46 million) by the Federal Competition Commission (Comco). The seven cartel members, including car importer AMAG, had fixed the prices of new Volkswagen cars for yea...

Switzerland’s second largest bank, Credit Suisse, has announced it will no longer pass on negative interest charges to private clients from July 1. On June 16, the Swiss National Bank surprised the markets by raising its benchmark interest rate by...

The Swiss government has presented plans for the introduction of a digital identity for citizens to facilitate administrative processes. Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said the proposed official digital identity would make life easier and spee...

The government has outlined plans to address a possible shortage of natural gas supplies this winter, saying it could resort to rationing if other measures were insufficient. Already in March, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Swiss governm...

The Swiss government has pledged CHF316 million ($330 million) to four United Nations development bodies. The funds are destined for the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN En...

The Swiss government has launched a system to measure the environmental impact of financial investments. The aim is to help the Swiss financial centre to position itself as an international leader in “credible climate transparency”, according to...

Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis is laying off more than one in ten employees in Switzerland over the next three years – 1,400 of 11,600 jobs will go. It also plans to cut 8,000 of 108,000 jobs worldwide. On Tuesday the Basel-based company in...

The Federal Court has upheld a ban on accessing foreign online gambling sites, dashing the hopes of three betting outfits to tap the Swiss market. The court said in a statement on Tuesday that the “domain name system” ban was proportionate. Gami...

Negative costs on third parties caused by transport in Switzerland amounted to CHF14 billion ($14.7 billion) in 2019. The damage mainly affects the environment and climate, but also health. The Federal Office for Spatial Development said in a report...

Swiss sprinter Alex Wilson was banned for four years on Tuesday after an anti-doping tribunal judged he intentionally used an anabolic steroid. The case flared up at the Tokyo Olympics last July when judges at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS...

The number of juvenile convictions for violating the Criminal Code increased in Switzerland last year. While convictions for traffic offences have risen, the number for drug offences has fallen sharply. A total of 20,902 convictions – 7.5% more th...

Cases of opioid poisoning have almost tripled in Switzerland over the past 20 years, although the full extent of the situation is unclear. The number of opioid-related calls made to Tox Info Suisse, the national poisoning hotline, increased by 177% ...

A Swiss pastor who fraudulently begged parishioners for money to fuel his gambling habit has been handed a three-year suspended jail sentence and must serve six months behind bars. The former clergyman conned CHF3.3 million ($3.4 million) out of his...

Swiss bank Credit Suisse has been fined CHF2 million ($2 million) for allowing cocaine dealers to launder money through its vaults. The verdict marks the first time a home-grown major Swiss bank has been convicted of such offences in the criminal cou...

Switzerland’s exclusion from the Horizon Europe research scheme is having a sizeable impact on the overall level of funding of Swiss science projects, new statistics show. According to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), the federal authorities ...

Scientists in Switzerland and Austria have created a new PET-like recyclable plastic that can be easily made from the non-edible parts of plants. The promising tough, heat-resistant plastic could be used for food packaging. Researchers from the Fede...

Additional cancellations of SWISS flights are “unavoidable” because of staff shortages, a company spokesperson told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Sunday. Scheduled flights between August and October would be affected by the latest announcement...

In the absence of a free trade deal, the United States and Switzerland are focusing on specific sectoral agreements, Scott Miller told the SonntagsBlick newspaper. Hopes for a free trade deal between the two countries have waxed and waned over the y...

Around 20 traders have reportedly increased their shipments of Russian oil since the war in Ukraine broke out. A third of these players have strong connections to Geneva, according to the newspaper Le Matin Dimanche. While the major Swiss-based comm...

Applied directly to the area where a tumour is located, a hydrogel developed by researchers at the University of Bern activates the body’s own defence system against melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer. The chances of survival among melano...

With debates at home and abroad raging about the country’s neutrality, President Ignazio Cassis has defended the concept. To him, being neutral means cooperating with other states while following Swiss principles. Adopting European Union sanctions...

A Moscow court has fined the messenger service Threema €14,200 (CHF14,363) for refusing to share user data with Russian authorities under a domestic anti-terror law. "The Russian authority Roskomnadzor apparently launched an investigation in March...

Journalists based in Mexico, Germany and the United States won prizes at this year’s edition of the True Story Award, given in the Swiss capital on Friday night. They were selected from a pool of more than 1,100 stories submitted for awards worth a...

Former FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke has been handed an 11-month suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of accepting bribes and forging documents in connection with World Cup football broadcasting deals. Valcke had been cleared ...

An honorary doctorate awarded to former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini will not be withdrawn by the University of Lausanne (UNIL) despite demands to wipe it from the records. In 1937, Mussolini was awarded the doctorate “for having conceived an...