In this episode, we’ll be talking about Swiss neutrality, in light of Switzerland’s recent decision to join the international community in imposing sanctions on Russia.

Switzerland has not officially taken part in conflict since 1815 and Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. This neutrality is a key principle of Swiss foreign policy, and has allowed its diplomats room to manoeuvre to pursue various objectives.

Now however, the country has taken a position regarding Russia’s attack on Ukraine. As we will see, it isn’t easy being neutral nowadays.

Here to discuss this with us is Clare O’Dea. Clare is an Irish author and journalist living in Fribourg. She has worked for Swissinfo and has written three books, including The Naked Swiss, which examines the main stereotypes about the country and its people, including neutrality.

In this episode we have something a little different for you, which is a talk with the author Andie Pilot.

Andie is a trained pastry chef, with a Swiss mother, who grew up in Canada and moved to Switzerland in 2010. She started a blog about Swiss food, Helvetic Kitchen, in 2015 and from there has published three books: Helvetic Kitchen, Drink like the Swiss and Swiss Cookies. Today she lives in the bucolic Emmental valley.

Enjoy!

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In this episode we tackle seven things you always wanted to know about life in Switzerland, but were maybe too afraid or too embarrassed to ask!