The Pepperoni Job

An illegal immigrant

Austerity in Switzerland is different

Austerity has hit Europe in many ways, but the Swiss do austerity differently to others.

Since de-linking the currency from the euro, the Swiss franc has risen sharply and the Swiss have been looking at how to save money.

One solution has been a sharp increase in cross-border pizza deliveries. Peckish Swiss have been phoning pizzerias from Constance in Germany, leading to a stream of pizza vans, carrying up to 80 of the Italian dishes over the border.

The mayor has said Swiss border guards have stopped the great pizza escape and the sound of margarita delivery has been silenced after they began checking vehicles suspected of bringing in immigrant pizzas.

A special dispensation, scrapped a year ago allowed food deliveries over the border, but as a spokesman for Swiss customs said, this led to businesses targeting Swiss customers as prices were up to 50% cheaper across the frontier.

The Swiss finally got cheesed off with the increased traffic.

The Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) for Hochrhein-Bodensee, the region on the German side of the border are lobbying for a return of the exemption. The organisation’s head, Uwe Boehm said “IHK Hochrhein-Bodensee is disappointed with this information and will, in the interests of our member companies, continue to work to find a solution.”

The same crossing point was popular in the Second World War with many escaping allied servicemen making the dash across the Swiss border.