Swiss Review 3/2018

31 Swiss Review / May 2018 / No.3 News Swiss cities in global ranking Anew study by Pricewaterhouse Coopers reveals howcom- petitive the major Swiss cities are compared with those in other countries. This is the first time that Swiss cities have been included in the consultancy firm’s annual ranking. Zu- rich occupies 5th place out of 34 cities behind London, Paris, Toronto and Singapore. Basel lies in 13th place, Geneva in 17 th and Berne in 20 th . Criteria such as the economy, adapt- ability and quality of life were evaluated. The Swiss cities performed particularlywell in terms of quality of life. Berne actually topped the ranking in the health and safety cate- gories. Novartis to divest over-the-counter medicine business The Basel-based pharmaceutical group Novartis trans- ferred its over-the-countermedicine business to a joint ven- ture with the UK company GSK three years ago as part of an exchange of several lines of business. Novartis satisfied itself with a 36.5% holding in over-the-counter medicine operations. The company is now completely divesting this line of business. GSK will pay 13 billion US dollars for the remaining stake. CHF 80 million for the ICRC Switzerland is supporting the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) again this year. The Federal Council has pledged 80million Swiss francs with retroactive effect to the headquarters inGeneva for 2018, which is exactly the same amount as last year. In addition to the contribution to headquarters, the Swiss Agency for Development and Co- operation (SDC) is providing 60.9 million francs to fund specific humanitarian operations carried out by the ICRC. Some 62.5 million francs was made available for this pur- pose last year. Switzerland was the fifth-largest contribu- tor to the ICRC’s total budget in 2017. New systems for air defence TheDepartment of Defence plans to reorganise air defence. The Swiss army is to be equipped with ground-to-air mis- siles with greater range. They must now be able to travel a distance of 50 kilometres and fly at a height of up to 12 kilo- metres. In addition to range, the missiles must also be able to cover at least 15,000 km 2 . New requirements have also been placed on the fleet of aircraft that will replace the Ti- ger and F/A-18 from 2025. Four fighter jets must be able to protect Swiss air space continuously for a four-week period in future. The air forcemust also be capable of carrying out aerial reconnaissance and combating ground targets in the event of an attack. TimGuldimann “The international councillor” was the slogan Tim Guldimann used to promote his National Council campaign in 2015. The 68-year-old Social Democrat, who lives in Berlin, was elected to the Swiss par- liament on the list of the SP in Zurich. As the first genuine for- eign-resident member of parliament, this was a real coup. A total of 56 Swiss Abroad tried and failed to get elected that year. The chances of being elected are slim because most candidates are almost un- known. This was not the case for TimGuldimann, who is an eminent Swiss diplomat. However, Guldimann stepped down at the end of the spring ses- sion in themiddle of his first term in office. Since hewas living abroad, he had been unable to spend enough time in his constituency, he said. It wasn’t easy living in one place and being a politician in another be- cause you needed personal contact to gauge the mood of the people youwere representing politically. After all, “Themetro in Berlin is not the same thing as the tram inZurich”. Guldimann also pointed to fam- ily reasons: his wife is extremely busy professionally because she is the deputy head of Spiegel magazine’s Berlin office. His two school- age daughters therefore need their father to be there and relocation to Switzerland would be out of the question. In parliament, TimGuldimannwas mainly involved in European policy. He has an outstanding network of contacts and was Switzer- land’s ambassador to Germany until his retirement in 2015. He pre- viously made a name for himself as the Swiss ambassador in Tehran and in the 1990s as a crisis diplomat in Chechnya, where he negoti- ated the ceasefire as head of the OSCE mission. His political career has now come to a somewhat less illustrious end than his diplomatic one. JÜRG MÜLLER Top pick News