Topics of the week 37

From September 14 to October 2, the Federal Palace once again turns into Switzerland's political epicenter: For three weeks, the 246 members of the National Council and Council of States will wrestle over landmark decisions.

At the core of the autumn session are three financial and foreign policy heavyweights: The power struggle over banking regulation with $15 billion to $25 billion in required capital reserves for UBS, the army dispatch worth CHF 3.4 billion along with the debate on a defense fund, and the launch of deliberations on the newly negotiated EU treaty package (Bilateral III).

From salary caps for health insurance executives and a CHF 20 million relief package for victims of the Crans-Montana fire disaster to emergency room fees at hospitals: Lawmakers are negotiating over 20 key dossiers that directly affect the business location and daily life of Swiss citizens.

We report live daily from the Federal Palace.

Burning debris in New York, a cordoned-off government building in Zug, and grounded Swissair planes in Kloten: The autumn of 2001 confronted Switzerland with a series of severe crises within just a few weeks. The September 11 attacks were followed by the attack in the Zug cantonal parliament, the grounding of the national airline, the fire disaster in the Gotthard road tunnel, and the Crossair crash near Bassersdorf.

The concentration of these events revealed fundamental vulnerabilities and sparked a profound rethink across all levels of society, government, and business.

As a result, public authorities and the private sector developed new standards in risk management: The Zug attack led to security checkpoints in parliamentary buildings nationwide and cantonal threat management systems.

The Gotthard tunnel fire resulted in the drip-feed system ('Tropfenzähler') for Swiss heavy traffic that remains in place today, as well as new safety concepts for Alpine transit. At the same time, the collapse of Swissair and the Bassersdorf accident forced stricter regulations for boards of directors, liquidity monitoring, and tightened oversight standards in civil aviation.

How the country processed this shock is explained by former Federal Councillor Moritz Leuenberger — Switzerland's reassuring voice during the crisis — in an in-depth interview with our Federal Palace correspondent Sebastian Gänger.

Visuals on the 2001 crisis autumn:

• 11.09.2001 – 9/11 Terrorist Attacks (Dossier)
• 27.09.2001 – Attack in the Zug Cantonal Parliament
• 02.10.2001 – Swissair Grounding (Dossier)
• 24.10.2001 – Fire Disaster in the Gotthard Road Tunnel
• 24.11.2001 – Crossair Crash near Bassersdorf

The historic summer drought has led to a record low for the Swiss potato harvest: With an estimated total of just 333,000 metric tons, the harvest volume is the lowest since records began.

The yield drop of nearly 20 percent hits the country at a sensitive point, given that per capita consumption stands at a remarkable 45 kilograms per year. This corresponds to around 140 grams daily per person, with processed products such as French fries and chips now accounting for 60 percent of demand. 

To meet domestic demand, nearly 130,000 metric tons must be imported this year. This shortage is fueling agricultural policy: The industry is urging the federal government to grant rapid access to new breeding technologies like gene editing (CRISPR/Cas) to bring climate-resilient varieties to fields faster.

For the first time in 35 years, the Ig Nobel Prizes — arguably the world's most whimsical scientific award — were presented outside the United States. At the Zurich Kongresshaus, the magazine Annals of Improbable Research honored studies that ‘first make you laugh, and then make you think.’

Among the awardees was a team from the University of Zurich and Agroscope: For their experiment with buried cotton underwear to measure soil health, the researchers received the Soil Science Prize. Other awards went to teams for splash-free urinals, nutritious cockroach milk, and the finding that teenage body odor is less appealing to parents than baby scent.

Prominent trophy presenters, such as Swiss Nobel laureate in Physics Michel Mayor, emphasized that the festive ceremony was by no means pure slapstick science. Speaking to our science editor Céline Elber, he noted that serious research questions lay behind these amusing approaches. Still, the staging remained characteristically flamboyant: Winners received worthless 10-trillion-dollar bills from Zimbabwe, and the strict time limit for acceptance speeches was enforced by people in banana costumes.

In the future, the international award ceremony is slated to take place in Zurich every two years, touring Europe in alternating years. We will happily cover it again here — albeit in two years' time.