Newsletter «Zurich (Inter)national»

From August 23 to 27, 2023, «Zurich meets Copenhagen» took place in Copenhagen as part of the «Copenhagen Cooking» food festival. With over 1300 participants at more than twenty events, the dialogue between the two cities was strengthened at the political and gastronomic level and also from a touristic perspective. The focus topic of this year's edition was food. With the «Zurich meets Copenhagen» festival, the City and the Canton of Zurich and Zurich Tourism, together with Zurich's universities, sent a strong signal for Zurich as an internationally attractive location for science, innovation and culture.

The centerpiece was the Festival Hub implemented by Food Zurich on Israels Plads in central Copenhagen. This was both a stage for numerous tastings and workshops and a marketplace for Zurich products such as «Biber» from Leibacher Biber-Manufaktur, chocolate from la Flor and locally produced sausages from Mikas. On a political level, Mayor Corine Mauch was able to continue the good relations with Copenhagen in another meeting with Lord Mayor Sophie Hæstrup Andersen.

The City Council of Zurich is requesting the City Parliament an additional credit of 1.025 Mio. Swiss francs for the next phase of the project NEXPO, the initiative of the ten largest Swiss cities for a new national exhibition. This will increase the previous expenditure allocated to NEXPO to 2.409 Mio. Swiss francs.

«NEXPO – the new Expo» aims to link cities, agglomeration and countryside, take place throughout Switzerland and be consistently sustainable. The project is being developed over several phases. In the actual Application Phase (application to the Federal Government for financial support), the NEXPO network will be further expanded and the concept will be refined . The NEXPO association is confident that the project meets the criteria of the Federal Government and corresponds to the wishes of Switzerland's population. NEXPO is also examining possible cooperation with other Expo initiatives.

On August 29, 2023, the municipal council of Biel (executive) visited Zurich. The delegation, led by mayor Erich Fehr, took part in a guided tour of Kreis 5 together with the city council of Zurich. The focus was on urban planning issues and in particular on how to deal with the heating of urban spaces. Afterwards, the two executive bodies exchanged views on various topics. Among other things, they discussed how to deal with violence in public spaces, how to deal with parking spaces in the blue parking zone, and how cities deal with their holdings in companies. The meeting was concluded with a dinner at Muraltengut.