Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, visited the ETH Zurich (News ETHZ)

To strengthen cross-border cooperation, Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann travelled with a delegation to Switzerland for two days on 28-29 April. Switzerland is one of Baden-Württemberg’s most important trading partners. The state wants to further intensify cooperation on future topics such as digitalisation, artificial intelligence or in the health sector as mentioned in the press release of the trip (in Gernamn: Kretschmann auf Delegationsreise in der Schweiz

During his visit in Switzerland, Kretschmann promised to lobby Berlin and Brussels for closer relations with Switzerland. For example, he wants to meet with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to convince her to fully associate Switzerland with the EU’s Horizon research programme again. “Who am I supposed to explain to that Turkey is a fully associated member and Switzerland is not?” The world has changed dramatically with the Russian war of aggression. Democratic states in the West must now work more closely together.

Read the article in Die Zeit: Reise: Kretschmann zu Schweiz und EU: “In die Pötte kommen”

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On 27 April the Representation of the Baden-Württemberg organised an online event titled “After the failure of the EU-Switzerland Framework Agreement: Impact on border regions”.

Florian Hassler, State Secretary in the State Ministry and Representative of the Land of Baden-Württemberg to the EU, highlighted the importance of EU-Swiss collaboration in research and innovation. He warned that the EU needs to make sure not the harm itself in this process, stating that “Swiss researchers are extremely important in European collaboration in research”.

You can find the video recording on the website of the State Representation in Brussels.