Easter traffic jams clog Swiss motorways

Traffic headaches continue on Good Friday for drivers in Switzerland during the Easter holidays.

After beginning with delays of up to and hour and 20 minutes on Thursday afternoon, drivers can expect only a little relief on Friday.

Thursday’s 9km long jam around Gotthard has let up only a little, with regular jams on the A2. As an alternative, the Touring Club of Switzerland (TCS) recommends using the A13 and San Bernandino Tunnel.

Routes heading south towards Italy are likely to see the most traffic, and the weather won’t make that situation better – with rain coming Monday that could see a risk of landslides and floods.

Switzerland is EU’s biggest source of chocolate

More than a third of all chocolate imported into the EU in 2023 – a full 36 percent – came from Switzerland, according to new numbers from Eurostat.

On the flip side, Switzerland bought about 24,000 tonnes of chocolate from the EU – which is not enough to place it among the bloc’s top five non-EU buyers.

That makes Switzerland, by a long shot, a net exported for chocolate to the EU.

READ ALSO: What’s going wrong with Swiss chocolate?

Switzerland must strengthen control of its financial sector, IMF warns

The IMF urged Switzerland on Thursday to strengthen its financial sector regulation as supervising UBS has become “more challenging” since it grew into a global banking behemoth after its takeover of Credit Suisse.

Switzerland’s biggest bank was strongarmed by the government into buying Credit Suisse last year over fears that the second largest lender in the country might go under and spark a global financial crisis.

“Lessons from the CS (Credit Suisse) case should inform further reforms to strengthen the regulatory and supervisory framework,” the IMF said in a statement concluding its annual staff mission to Switzerland.

Like UBS, Credit Suisse was among 30 international banks deemed too big to fail due to their importance in the global banking architecture.

The merger raised serious concerns in Switzerland around jobs, competition and the size of the resulting bank relative to the Swiss economy.

“The complexity of the combined bank’s global operations also makes supervision more challenging,” the International Monetary Fund said.

You can read the full warning from the IMF here.

Swiss citizenship updates

With Zurich lowering citizenship fees in the canton, is it an apt time to consider taking Swiss citizenship?

If so, the process involves some bureaucracy, including a reference letter. Read our explainer about the letter, and how to prepare it.

EXPLAINED: What is in the reference letter you might need for Swiss citizenship?