Swiss Review 2/2021

Swiss Review / April 2021 / No.2 31 Military service – from home It was an unconventional start to training for 5,000 of the 12,000 or so recruits who joined the Swiss Armed Forces at the end of January, as the Covid-19 pandemic meant they were confined to their homes for the first few weeks. In- stead of courtyard drills and longmarches in thewind and rain, the recruits did e-learning andwore in their newcom- bat boots from the comfort of their sitting room. However, this gentle introduction was eventually followed by the in- evitable summons to barracks. (MUL) The Swiss Air Force is now open all hours Since the beginning of the year, the Swiss Air Force’s air po- licing activities over Switzerland now extend to all hours and days of theweek, with two armed combat aircraft ready for operations round the clock. Nothing unusual about that, you may think. However, until 2015 fighter jets used to be only on stand-by on workdays during office hours. This at- tracted a lot of public ridicule at the time. Since then, air po- licing capability has been gradually expanded. (MUL) No exit from “Exit” for the Swiss Abroad The Swiss organisation for physician-assisted suicide, Exit, has decided not to exclude Swiss members domiciled abroad and will continue to make its services available to the “Fifth Switzerland”. Exit announced in summer 2020 that, in future, it would only be open tomemberswho lived in Switzerland and would delete existing members who moved abroad. It eventually backtracked after members voiced their opposition. (MUL) The Federal Council wants to privatise PostFinance The Federal Council wishes to privatise Swiss Post subsid- iary PostFinance completely, so as to allow PostFinance to enter into the mortgage business. The planned privatisa- tion is a contentious issue. Opponents fear it wouldweaken Swiss Post. It is thanks in part to PostFinance’s profits that Swiss Post is able to fund its nationwide service in the first place. (MUL) The FDFA wants to enhance its embassy network Switzerlandwants to strengthen its representations abroad. According to Swiss radio (SRF) sources, the Federal Depart- ment of ForeignAffairs (FDFA) is planning to relocate some 35 Berne-based positions abroad in order to bolster its smaller offices around the world. The Federal Council be- lieves that the FDFA’s close-knit foreignnetwork has proved particularly valuable during the Covid-19 pandemic. How- ever, some Swiss representations are “understaffed”, it wrote in its latest foreign policy report. (MUL) Gerhard Pfister Swiss politicswelcomed a newparty at the beginning of 2021 after the merger between the ChristianDemocrat People’s Party (CVP) and the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP). The party’s new name, “The Centre”, sounds a bit lame. History is in the making nonetheless, be- cause the Catholic Conservative movement, once a political force in Switzerland, has now consigned its religious ties to the past. Top Christian Democrat Gerhard Pfister, who was educated at convent school, is behind this radical break. Pfister (canton of Zug) highlighted his conservative valueswhenhe took over the party leadership in 2016. Now he has moved the CVP away from its traditional Catholic roots because the party has been losing voters for almost 40 years. It is even touch and go whether it will hold on to its seat in the Federal Council. Pfister is trying to attract new voters who would otherwise be put off by the “C” in CVP. “I want to talk politics with people, but end up hav- ing to talk religion with them,” he says. Pfister, 58, is regarded as a clever strategist who is by no means averse to political manoeuvring and power. Eloquent and erudite, he appears just as comfortable talk- ing about art and culture as he is about politics. Pfister has sold the merger as a “fresh opportunity”, seeing potential for a new centre powerwith a social conscience to counteract the polarisation between left and right. Reaction fromcommentators has beenmixed, ranging from praise (“an original solution”) to scepticism (“final humiliation for the CVP”). Will Pfister’s planwork?We will find out after the next federal elections in 2023. SUSANNE WENGER Top Pick News