A binational couple: Boundless love
During the lockdown in spring 2020, Tom Glanzmann experienced at first hand the difficulties of being separated from his partner. A brief review.
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Planning and Resources
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Sara de Ventura: Language courses at SEM
Sara De Ventura is the face behind a series of webinars for SEM language courses.
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Tears of sadness and exhaustion
Cornelia Jost-Barth won’t forget the first wave of the pandemic in a hurry. An emotional look back to spring 2020.
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Martina Mühleman: The coordinator
Martina Mühlemann, co-manager of the COVID-19 task force and crisis unit, had to stay level-headed at all times.
Continue readingA few figures
Despite the pandemic, day-to-day business kept SEM busy – here are a few figures from 2020:
- 28'168
Ordinary naturalisations - 6899
Simplified naturalisations
- 124
Reinstatements of citizenship - 175
Humanitarian visas - 17'036
Travel documents and return visas for foreign nationals in Switzerland
- 52’308
Residence permits
Cooperation between the UK and Switzerland
In view of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union at the start of 2021, Switzerland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland signed a Memorandum of Understanding in December on extending cooperation in the field of migration and on mobility. The two-year agreement on mobility concerns, in particular, the entry to and stay in Switzerland of service providers to ensure that short-term services can still be provided once freedom of movement ends.
Language equals integration – and vice versa
Language is the foundation of integration. For many years the Confederation has therefore promoted the linguistic integration of migrants. In 2017, the federal government established the fide office: ‘fide’ stands for ‘French, Italian and German (DEutsch) in Switzerland’. In 2020 alone, around 13,000 people completed a fide language test in one of these three national languages; 203 course instructors received a certificate for teaching in the field of integration. fide currently runs 30 language courses in the German- and French-speaking parts of Switzerland.