Why Switzerland is so well-run 

Correction at 10:09: We show Luzern when we should've shown Lausanne

As a former Swiss politician, I find this video really well done, though you maybe idealize Switzerland a little bit. However, one of our main pillars is the right for referendums and initiatives which is fundamental in keeping social peace.

This comment section is now declared neutral territory 🇨🇭🇨🇭🇨🇭

most important difference is that being a politician is not a career in Switzerland. every member of parliament only does it part time, even on federal level. i think you misunderstood the swiss dude at 12:30. we have a very professional administration not parliament. there is a big difference. in switzerland there is no professional career in politics unlike in irleand like you mentioned

A federated Ireland would probably make unification an easier sell in NI.

What one might have missed is that usually, when taxes in a canton are lower, rent - or home prices are often way higher.

I would certainly advocate federalisation in Ireland, as you said one of the main problems here is accountability.

This is primarily due to the fact that Switzerland's governmental system is structured to be more of a loose Federation of Cantons. In fact, the Swiss were a legal Confederation for many hundreds of years. This effectively distributed a lot of power and local authority to the Cantons. In doing so, it truly proves Plato correct when speaking about how the concept of the City-State is truly the best way that one could govern. This means that these independent cantons can set a lot of their own rules, but also that they are insulated from one another and have a lot of local cultures and autonomy. This is how you end up with some that have Romansh that is well spoken and some that have Italian as being well spoken. To go even further, the populations of these cantons are very small when compared to national divisions like those found in Russia, the USA, Germany, and Brasil, all nations that have a similar form of government structure. As a result of these small populations, it is very easy for everyone to come together and make a decision on things. The smallest US state by population, Wyoming, has about 600,000 people, whereas California has almost 40 million. A single city, New York City, has nearly 9 million people and doesn't have sovereign home rule like what it would have if it were a canton in Switzerland. It would have several cantons. But that is part of my point. It is far easier to get 1,000 people to agree than to get 1 million people that don't know each other.

Switzerland is a confederation. There is a difference. Switzerland has direct democracy. Kanton Basel is the cultural and pharmaceutical center of Switzerland. You have the Arrow of Power backwards. In Switzerland citizens are not "given" a Big Say. Rather, citizens cede the minimal necessary power to the federal government to make things work. If the federal government makes a blunder, cantons or the citizenry step in to correct the blunder. "Subsidiarity" is the technical term for moving control to the lowest level. In the EU it is theoretical. In Switzerland it is simply the way things are done.

As a Swiss, this was eminently interesting. I think I learned almost as much about Ireland as an Irish who watched this vid did about Switzerland Like mentioned, one thing that is an impediment to applying localism to Ireland is the dominance of Dublin, which doesn't have a parallel in Switzerland. One "suggestion" I have is that the dominance of Dublin however could be reduced if you cut away as much of its suburbs as possible and assign them to their own polities. In Switzerland this is represented by how the canton of Basel City is just the core of the city, while half of the population of the urban area actually resides in a different canton, Basel Countryside. While this wasn't some decision (the split happened in the 1830s, way before the urban area had grown so much), it still turned out to be a vehicle to combat centralization in that region.

Really informative & well made. The point about the quality of politicians is crucial. All Swiss parliamentarians are part-time and thus bring their professional expertise to the job. Also, as you hint at, Swiss voters generally don't vote for former local beauty queens, Eurovision contestants, local publicans or estate agents. The average calibre of the political class is much higher.

I think this would be great for Ireland but sadly I can never see being implemented as the people in power would have to relinquish some of it.

Swiss are quite rooted to their home canton. They move during life much less than other nationalities. It’s more that people feel a stronger commitment to smaller communities like cantons than people do towards larger populations of national states.

Switzerland is well-run because it had to be in order to exist at all. It sits in the center of Europe like a giant naturally occurring fortress, possibly the biggest naturally occurring fortress in the entire world. A fortress no matter how big its battlements requires a large and well discipline garrison to keep from being expunged by powerful neighbours. Therefore the Swiz population is abnormally disciplined.

Esentially, Switzerland is what the United States of America could have been if not for factionalism and warmongering.

It's interesting that neutrality is considered as similarity. This is when neutral Switzerland has 147,178 active personnel in the army and compulsory military service for all males.

As a swiss citizen i‘m proud to live here and glad we don‘t belong to the EU. We make our own rules. That‘s the way it should be!

Fun fact, when she was talking about Lausanne at 10:10, The video is actually showing the German-speaking city of Luzern.

Lots of key differences left out. Ireland was essentially monocultural (98% Catholic white) until very recently. Switzerland has always been very diverse (German, French, Italian speaking areas) making it much easier to pitch regions against each other. Like other countries in Europe, Switzerland has a lengthy history of bottom up industrial and scientific R and D, which no doubt has society-wide influences in terms of productivity and efficiency. Ireland was basically agrarian until Lemass, and our industry is taxation-linked end-stage manufacturing and sales with very little home-grown invention and innovation that might seep through to influence the political system.

Being Irish and having lived in Switzerland its a truly incredible country. The Kanton system was very suprising to learn about but the different regions are so different with people having different religions, languages, etc. that it makes more sense that they work independently. As others have mentioned cities are tiny in Switzerland too with the population distributed evenly throughout the Kantons which is the opposite to Ireland where the greater Dublin area houses the majority of the Irish. Swiss industry is incredible too with many massive swiss multinationals having hubs located throughout Switzerland. Intuitively it feels like we are very different people from my experience and that copying the system won't fit Ireland. Would definitely need to look more into why Switzerland is so wealthy and able to maintain it

Ireland had a similar system in 1922 Free State constitution with citizens enabled referendums but 1937 constitution put the power in the political class and we have seen the damage that has done.

I'm all about the principle of subsidiarity. If a problem can be dealt with at a lower level, it should be. Living in Dublin now, it depresses me that everything is focused on the capital, and other areas, particularly my own area in the northwest, gets neglected - and yet Dublin itself is so concerned with so many spinning plates, that things get neglected here too - think of the housing crisis. I know we're all laid back and good craic and all, but we would care more if we actually had a stake in our own area, and felt like our decisions made a difference to improve things. I can never see it happening in Ireland - as you said about the quangos, the centre likes to accrue more power and money to itself all the time - our system would never allow itself to hand away power to a more localised and/or federal system, but I think a good start would be allowing county and city councils to have more autonomy to enact local laws/budgets etc. I think lower population is actually an advantage here - you're almost guaranteed to know who your councilor is, and for local populations to put pressure on them.

5:10 - small correction, if you are from a "third state" like myself your residence permit is only good for your Canton; to switch you would need to apply, and you might get denied. In any case, once you get permanent residence that changes. Very nice video.

Moved to Bern from Cork 9 months ago. Love your videos - really great to get an understanding of why generally things are so much better run here. Public transport here is just amazing and it makes me sad knowing how far behind Ireland is.

I lived in India for about 9 years, in Ireland for 16 years and now in the uk for almost 10 years. For the amount of tax money Ireland makes and the few people it has to serve with that money, it shocks me Ireland gets it so wrong. The people of Ireland are so intelligent, underrated imo, they need to demand more. London is almost twice the population of Ireland and a small town in India would have more of a population than Ireland so I can't compare these 3 countries like for like. Though Ireland has the highest potential out of all 3 if we look at per person benefit because of its small population. I was there when a pointless needle named the spire was placed in the middle of Dublin and they forgot to factor putting lights on top of it costing the tax payer so much to repair. I was there when Dublin got its first tram link the luas and they didn't connect the 2 lines and spent millions years later correcting that. Irish culture has so many positives that I love so do my family and we still hold those values wherever we go. If you are bringing in a tonne of migrants from very different cultures the government of Ireland needs to put a plan in place to integrate them and show them the Irish way. When brexit happened Ireland should have seen the biggest benefit, it's an English speaking corporate tax haven with EU membership but the gov of Ireland somehow turned it into a negative. I can go on and on with these examples. There is no accountability for the government. No country is perfect but Ireland definitely has the potential to be. I hope it learns from countries such as Switzerland and our Scandinavian neighbours. ❤☘️

this video has been my personality since arriving in dublin after growing up in geneva. Like every other video, an absolute banger!!

I just moved to switzerland 6 month before it is amazing I love it here .

The thing with localism really is, that you have to take responsibility as a citizen. When you take a vote in a town hall meeting, you will see the effect on your tax bill or with services provided or not provided. Of course, there is a dependency to money provided by the canton for example for big infrastructure projects which can't be put forward on the municipal level. But to get this money, there is always the need to show, that a project serves the interest of the canton as well.

The notion of competition between cantons is interesting but we already know every local council in Ireland seeks to minimise the tax they take from their residents through their discretion over property taxes, and still they complain that public services are bad because they don’t have the funding. Ultimately councillors don’t seem to care about good public services when lowering taxes is the opportunity cost.

such a great video, i love switzerland so much.. and you 100% focus'ed on the right reason Switzerland became so great..

I moved from Romania to Ireland than I moved from Ireland to Switzerland and this might be the best decision I ever made, my income has dubbled compared to what salary I was getting in Ireland and I also like the job that I do now. In Ireland I was barely getting 2k now I get 4-5k depending on how much overtime I do

It is the first time that I see such a detailed and honest comparative analysis of two countries, and being Swiss I can tell that your comments are correct for Switzerland. Really valuable video.

Loved this. Thank you!

Federalisation is all well and good until Michael Healy Rae is given the keys to an entire county

I love localism. Thanks for another great video explaining how thats possible in Ireland. But if we wanted something like this, where would we start? Apart from sharing this video.

why did you use ai slop at 0:03 when a real image would have been easily available?

10:09 Pity that the city of *Lausanne* in the French speaking part was confused with *Luzern/Lucerne* which resulted in the wrong moving vista being shown...

Great video as always

Direct Democracy run by the citizens and not some corrupt politicians.

As a Swiss I'll tell you what one of the most underrated features of our political system is: The fact that our national executive is elected by the parliamemt and NOT by the people. This may sound counter intuitive for a country that prides itself on its "direct democracy" but the important upside is that this way we dont have "presidential elections" that are just marketing campaigns full of lies like in the USA (no offense)

in a lot of this i do see dublin existing as the political capital can be seen as a common cause for many of the issues, there is a trend where when countries overlap their financial + political capital a housing crisis often follows, with the english common wealth like australia, nz, canada and the US being exceptions. switzerland is expensive but when you look at the cost of living vs average income you can see theyre doing MUCH better than ireland. honestly ireland itself needs a more radical vision for what they wanna be, to really incite change and put their foot forward as a young country. (tbf theyve already done so in many ways considering a country only 100 years old is not a corruption ravaged dystopia like the philippines and other young countries)

One point, Switzerland isn’t a federation, it’s a confederation.

I love the way everything WORKS so well in such a quietly efficient manner - yet the people never boast........unlike various other Countries that are run nowhere near so well!

What an interesting video. While I don't believe 100% federalism would work in Ireland, I think certain elements and lessons from the Swiss system can be successfully implemented in Ireland! I think for us to progress towards this efficiency, the best way to start is by talking to or emailing local councillors and showing them the benefits of the decentralisation elements of the Swiss system (even linking this video as an idea) to get the ball rolling towards adopting those elements at municipality, county or province level. Showing them the benefits to the economy, accountability and the increase of wealth for the population are all good points. I particularly like the idea that different countries would be specialised in different things and therefore the money/power is more balanced across the country. Fostering a spirit of competition (while it already exists in Ireland too) at an increased level like between the cantons would surely be beneficial with no drawbacks that I can identify.

Please not again: Switzerland has 4 NATIONAL languages, but only 3 are OFFICIAL languages at federal level. And Switzerland has no official capital city, none defined in the constitution. Bern is the capital of the canton of Bern - just that Swiss Federal government and parliament is in Bern. An important part on Switzerland is missing; peoples rights to oppose laws adopted by parliament and option to ask for constitutional changes by the people. At federal level, any law or change of law is subject to a popular vote if asked by enough people within a time limit. So for example VAT rates are part of a law - any change can be blocked in a popular vote, and the few attempts by politicians to remove the rates from the law and leave that decision to government have been refused in popular vote. That referendum option is also blocking unpopular laws - by simply knowing they would not pas the referendum. People can also ask for a constitutional change by collecting 100'000 signatures within 18 months. Any change of constitution has to be approved by a majority of the voters and a majority of the cantons. Advantage for the government: once accepted by a popular vote, political or popular opposition will be weak. Important point also missing: education belongs to the cantons - their laws define how schools are run and financed - including universities. Federal government is in charge of only 2 high level technical universities - one in Zurich (ETHZ) and one in Lausanne (EPFL). Interesting also intercantonal agreements ("Konkordate") to solve common problems on matters belonging to cantonal authorities without using federal laws. The political system is in fact based on cantons - the confederation is in charge only of fields that have been delegated to the federal administration (by the constitution). Many federal laws also leave application of the law to the cantons (basically what EU does, laws have to be applied to the member countries, just that the EU rules are much more restrictive)

I have been living in IE and CH. I think this video idealizes Switzerland quite a bit. Where there is less money (usually where more poor people live) it's not running that well. Without having any clue about Irish politics and living outside greater Dublin, I actually think Ireland is a great place to live and it feels relaxed yet organized and well-run.

Some data is misleading. For example, narrator talk about Heath Care but the table presented is about “Health Care Innovation”. Very different. Happens several times during the video…

The Swiss don’t leave their home cantons as much as this would suggest.

Amazing what good responsible government can accomplish for it's citizens.

Great Video!

Wow, I have watched 100s of videos about ch but this is best of all... because you went to municipality level.. upload more about Switzerland

Cost efficiency was mentioned in the video as one of the advantages of the Swiss system. This is only partly true; in certain aspects it is even more inefficient. Especially when we look at the digitalisation of public administration, federalism across 3 relatively ‘autonomous’ levels is not only very inefficient, but even a hindrance. For this reason, Switzerland ranks among the lowest in Europe when it comes to the maturity of digitalisation and the availability of eGovernment services. Many things are done more or less overlapping or even redundant on all three levels of federalism. As mentioned in the video, this ensures a high level of identification of the population with the country, but also causes a lot of friction and unnecessary competition between the levels. What was not mentioned in the videao was the principle of concordance government, which is very typical and important for Switzerland. This means that the parties are represented in legislative and executive bodies in proportion to their share of votes and are therefore also dependent on finding compromises between the different positions. This primarily ensures the mentioned stability, as only manageable shifts take place after an election and not a complete change of government responsibility from one party to another.

Heya - really interesting video - thanks! Any thoughts on how this could be introduced in Ireland? Could it be trialled in certain counties somehow?

You also have to know Switzerland is incredibly centripetal. There are grand coalitions at all levels. Even the populists have to sit down with everyone. Ah, consensualism, just heard it. Frustrating thing in CH is how long things can take. Can literally take decades to build something like a football stadium.

Another commonality with Switzerland is that the Republic has not set a precedent of redrawing its counties like the UK did in 1974. The counties thus have respect as integral polities of their own and not just administrative areas defined by the stroke of a Whitehall pen.

Reasonable breakdown of the swiss system, well done! Small error: you did show Lucerne when talking about Lausanne. Easy mistake to make with the english pronunciations of those city names.

Yes. Decentralise! Towns, communities and counties should make way more decisions for themselves

Nice video. One remark: things move / change slowly in switzerland - that can be seen both positively or negatively.

there're many videos that blew up Switzerland too much on the internet. Giving a false impression that it's a heaven on earth.

As a Swiss, I mostly wish for Ireland that it will be able to unify with NI one day. I don't even have OCD and it makes me uncomfortable looking at any map of this island. I find it so absurd that the UK insists on holding on to that bit of land up there... it's like if my neighbor occupied my bathroom and told me: "it's cool bro, you can have the rest of the apartment." I'm an atheist, so for me this isn't even about religion. I just think the island of Ireland should belong to the Republic of Ireland. Or if the Brits love things being messy so much, they could at least give Cornwall to Ireland in return.

Very good video - thank you! Generally in Switzerland: taxation must always be accompanied by representation. Whoever must pay, must have a say. The Swiss Cantons don't just operate LIKE mini-states, They ARE actually separate states. Each Canton in Switzerland has its own Constitution, parliament, police force, judicial system as well as its own executive and legislative government branches! All Canton parliaments can propose new Cantonal laws. Don't forget: the US bill of rights and the Constitution were once modelled after key elements of the Swiss national Constitution (check out Johnny Harris' video on Swiss gun culture and its militias), and many years later, when the Swiss modernized their constitution, it was modelled after the two chamber system of the US of A. This is why both nations to date still have a two chamber system (congress and senate) as well as very liberal gun laws (militia system), albeit with two very different outcomes for their respective societies. 😉 The Canton of Geneva is also one of the only Cantons (neighboring, also french oriented Lausanne with the IOC is another such glamorous and filthy rich anomaly) that can afford to NOT tax its wealthiest and highest paid employees at all: all employees of international bodies such as the UNHCR, the UN, the WHO and all other global entities that provide extremely cushy and well paying jobs to natives from 180 countries living and working in Geneva are tax-exempt, DESPITE their outrageously high salaries and their usage of the Swiss infrastructure, institutions, currency, medical systems, social welfare and general and protection. To cover this financial short-fall, the Canton of Geneva must take higher taxes from those lowly Swiss workers and employees that do not work for international bodies and are therefore NOT tax-exempt. No wonder, no other Canton in Switzerland would agree to paying for the Canton Geneva tax funding shortfall. 😂😂 BTW, this is one of the major reasons why Geneva is ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world. When you have a huge portion of inhabitants making outrageous salaries and not being taxed, guess what happens with the cost of items that ensure an elevated quality of life that these un-taxed people can all easily afford: they tend to go through the roof.

nice video, thanks. watching it on my phone i find the "old film" effects (white stains and low fps) very annoying.

Federalisation is not needed in Ireland. All that is required is for counties to have their own ordinance so that the councils have more power to set taxes and local legislation.

This was a very interesting video but as pointed out a little bit idealized. Even with direct democracy and initiatives progress and policy changes can be very slow. There have been many recent examples where this hasn’t been carried out well, the biggest one being the country narrowly voting to cut or significantly reduce the free movement of people from the EU as well as to renegotiate trade deals in 2014, this however, to my knowledge was never implemented. There also seems to be a lack of flexibility when needing to tackle urgent problems, such as the housing crisis. At the end of the day, the Swiss system is something to marvel at and the fact it works at all with the cultural differences between the Röstigraben and the Romandie is amazing.

the reason the average swiss wealth is so high is just the inflated prices. anyone that owns a home is a "millionaire". that doesn't mean you are living like a rich person.

Median is probably a better measurement of wealth to get a more accurate representation. As high outliers if not excluded can make it look like many earn more, when it's only a few who earn massive amounts.

i was there last week.One thing you did mention is the history ,switzerland began as a confederation of three cantons and over time does cantons joined together so from its inception it was federal.In ireland something similar was the case with provincial kingdoms but that has been disrupted due to british rule so really federal systems would need to be built from scratch.

Sorry to be nit-picky, but we do not have a capital. Bern is the seat of the federal government, it's de facto, but not de juro the capital.

Brilliant vid. When you said a restoration of local democracy at the end, did you mean that Ireland had local democracy before?

I've lived more than 10 years in Switzerland now, I love it, the more I learn about the political system the more I think it is EXTREMELY well thought and oriented to the interest of people

If Ireland was Federated along the lines of the 4 provinces and Dublin, we could make our country much more efficient. The Canadian constitution is already a model for this. For example, instead of having a position of ‘Lieutenant Governor General’ you could call the position a ‘Prefect’ like regional governors in France. Federating Ireland along County lines likely wouldn’t work for anyone except Dublin because the population of most are much smaller than Swiss Cantons. The counties should be given more power though, and Ireland’s local boroughs and Mayors that were abolished in 2014 should be restored as many local areas have had no regional autonomy since and are merely run by faceless civil servants.

How insightful, it will never catch on outside CH as those with power will do everything to retain it

The message of the video was great, but was the tempo a little off, each sentence felt rushed?

This is well made, and informative, but a suggestion: please drop the fake film noise effects. They are distracting, and not needed. Cheers.

thank you for speaking so highly of us lol.

As a Swiss national I have to say there is not a single wrong information in the video. Very well researched.

Congratulations for this excellent job. Very informative and easy to grasp! Now, how do I move to Switzerland? 😅

I'm glad someone is bringing up the democratic deficit which goes hand in hand with being a small member of the EU. People blindly say the EU is good because it's a popular thing to say, but only a handful of MEPs are Irish, and an even smaller amount are making laws in the EU Commission. We need more democracy on a local level, in or out of the EU.

Ireland has a poor infrastructure which is noticed right at the airport relative to the ones in Switzerland. Public transportation, mobility, roads, purchasing power are way superior in Switzerland. Even the infrastructure and purchase power in the Netherlands is much better than in Ireland indicating that Irelands very high GDP per capita does not mean much for a regular citizen.

Just to point out some disadvantages: Direct democracy: Yes, people can decide alot of things themselfes but it makes everything just slow as hell. it takes often 10+ years to implement an idea because it has to go thru alot of steps until it gets implemented. Efficiency in public office: it is true, but you have a massive overhead on administrative cost as every little town is doing essentials almost the same thing as the town next to it, but they use their own personell, different software and so on. Great video, but it came accross a bit too optimistic and i think its important to point out the disadvantages as well as the advantages.

Banking makes up for less than 10% of Switzerland's GDP, also it almost constantly held the nominally highest GDP per capita of its neighbors (with the exception of Liechtenstein).

What software is used to create this infographics and video?

This is one of the reason I move to Switzerland. It has a lot of familiarity to ireland but it has a lot of things better than Ireland. I am from Cork. 10:10 ps: you put clip of the city of Luzern, when she was talking about "Lausanne". I know it can confusing 😂

As someone that lives in Switzerland. I can't stress it enough that the country is INSANELY well managed, in every possible way you can think specially Banking and Healthcare... And even cooler, when a new law is proposed the PEOPLE ARE THE ONES ACTUALLY DECIDING not the government (specially on a cantonal level). I wish more countries were like this. Either managed in the same way (cantonal) or they would still be federal/national but have better communication. For example Portugal (one of my most beloved countries) is simply in shambles sadly...

The best country in the world 🇨🇭🇨🇭🇨🇭

Local government unfortunately doesn’t solve NIMBYism, which is one reason properties are so heckn expensive in switzerland and why it’s difficult to plant windmills and solar panels. Otherwise it’s pretty much amazing.

The stiffest competitors are usually not far apart. E.g. Zurich and Basel, both Swissgerman, protestant, left green, business oriented - they 'hate' each other. Because of such rivalries, the German-speaking part never united e.g. against the French-speaking part, despite being a majority of ~70%. So in a strange way, competition between neighbours stabilised the overall structure, which per se has a huge conflict potential given the 4 languages, two main confessions, and bloody history.

As a resident of a developing country with a devolved government , I'm curious to know how the revenue sharing formula (for national revenue) was arrived at because it has become a very thorny issue here whereby they integrate a land area component in the formula, so you have vast counties with very low populations receiving a disproportionate amount of money compared to the smaller and densely populated counties (which produce more tax receipts) and this is leading a phenomenon where the large counties don't even pay attention to revenue collection and run thoroughly inefficient governments ,they have no incentive to collect their own revenue or streamline their governments since they practically get their inefficiencies subsidised

In Canada the consolidation of local bureaucracies in order to 'reduce waste' had inevitably caused an increase in the total size of the bureaucracies and waste. I suspect that if responsibilities were devolved waste would be reduced, contrary to the expectations of 'experts', but then the results of reality are often contradicting the 'experts.'

A couple of decades ago, when a part of the swiss population wanted to form their own state or canton Jura within Switzerland, it wasn't enough to ask politely. They blew up electric transmission lines until they got their way. Nevertheless, this is considered today as a successfull and peacefull democratic process, all agree about.

2:23 In proper English, it's called «Canton of Grisons» (and not Canton of Graubünden) ;) (He says «Canton of Grisons at 4:07 btw) 2:54 Joëlle Fiss doesn't know her subject. The Parliaments in the cantons are charged to make and vote the law. In Berne, «l'Initiative parlementaire» exists. In the Canton of Jura too, it exists. It also exists in the Canton of Fribourg, Vaud and Valais and even Zurich (Parlamentarische Initiative). She just doesn't know and she invents and what she asserts is, by the end, wrong. Quite sad...

Nice video but again you’re showing Luzern instead of Lausanne when people talk about Lausanne. Makes me roll my eyes each time :)

Lausanne has the best uni in French-speaking Switzerland, not Luzern. At 10:10 you are showing Luzern when you mean to show Lausanne

Where you state cantons are similar to counties, I feel the word state is more accurate, as in states within a nation. Regional groups of towns and cities are grouped into separate regions, more akin to counties within the states.

I hate that when we know our system is shit and there is a better alternative, we dont change it.

No car industry

Cheers Polysee. God bless

VAT in Switzerland is 8.1%. The 7.7% are pretty old data.

If we ever integrate Northern Ireland this increased localism would also greatly help fitting the Northern counties into the new state ecology

You can say “communes” or “municipalités” when you’re referring to the villages, towns and, cities.