Tag Archives: Editor’s Choice

A real estate report by the bank UBS, which looks at 25 top resorts in Switzerland, Austria, France and Italy, shows vacation home price drops across Switzerland. These price falls contrast with price rises in resorts in Austria, France and Italy. With more than 10,000 second homes, Crans-Montana is Switzerland’s biggest market in the Alpine region. Next is Davos/Klosters with just under 10,000 apartments. Third is...

From 15 June 2017, there are no EU roaming charges for most of those with a mobile phone on an EU contract. The new rules compelling operators to axe the charges, announced in September last year, are now in force. Countries outside the EU, but within the European Economic Area (EEA), including Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland’s neighbour Liechtenstein, are included, but Switzerland isn’t. While technically EEA countries, which include Liechtenstein, Norway, the Channel Islands, the Isle of...

From 15 June 2017, there are no EU roaming charges for most of those with a mobile phone on an EU contract. The new rules compelling operators to axe the charges, announced in September last year, are now in force. Countries outside the EU, but within the European Economic Area (EEA), including Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland’s neighbour Liechtenstein, are included, but Switzerland isn’t. While technically EEA countries, which include Liechtenstein, Norway, the Channel Islands, the Isle of...

Le Matin. On 15 June 2017, one day after kicking off the job of collecting the signatures required to call a referendum, the text for a new plan to limit access to Switzerland’s job market was presented to the Swiss government. Before a Swiss popular vote or referendum can be launched 100,000 valid signatures must be collected within the space of 18 months. The text for this initiative calls for immigration to be halted when unemployment rises above 3.2%. The International Labour...

This week, Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) announced it had carried out the largest number of robotic surgical procedures in Europe, passing the milestone of 2,500. The exact total is 2,514, which include visceral (1,185), urological (1,053) and gynaecological (276) operations. The team has observed numerous benefits from robotic surgery, such as smaller incisions and scars, less pain, less leakage from stitches, fewer blood transfusions and less time in hospital. In addition, costs are...

A real estate report by the bank UBS, which looks at 25 top resorts in Switzerland, Austria, France and Italy, shows vacation home price drops across Switzerland. These price falls contrast with price rises in resorts in Austria, France and Italy. Still the most expensive – St. Moritz – © Danilo Mongiello | Dreamstime.com With more than 10,000 second homes, Crans-Montana is Switzerland’s biggest market in the Alpine region. Next is Davos/Klosters with just under 10,000 apartments. Third is...

Swiss pensions have three parts. The first is a standard payment based on the number of years you have paid social security taxes (AVS / AHV). The second (2nd pillar) is based on a personal pot of money built up from compulsory salary deductions. And the third is a personal pot derived from optional tax deductible savings, known as a 3rd pillar. All three are designed to come together to provide enough income in...

Yesterday, the price comparison website Verivox published a study comparing mobile phone costs across 13 european countries. On most measures Switzerland was the most expensive, and by a wide margin. A plan including 100 minutes of talk and 1 Go (gigaoctet1) of data per month costs an average of CHF 25 per month in Switzerland. The same thing was significantly cheaper in Spain (CHF 20.70), Denmark (CHF 19.30), France...

Every three months the rate of interest used to set Swiss rents is reviewed. If it goes down some renters have the right to request a decrease in rent. This time it dropped 0.25% to 1.50%. - Click to enlarge The interest rate used to set the reference rate was the average rate on Swiss mortgages at 31 March 2017 of 1.61% which rounds to 1.50% under the rounding rules, which round to the nearest quarter of a...

A study of data from 195 countries from 1990 to 2015 published recently in the medical journal The Lancet, ranks Switzerland’s healthcare system third. The analysis looked at mortality rates from causes that should not be fatal in the presence of effective medical care. It considered both healthcare access and quality and was designed with the aim of normalising for local environmental and behavioural risks. - Click...