swisster - euro 2008.

This article appeared on Swisster on 4 June, 2008.

Traditional rivals Austria, Switzerland united for Euro 2008

Tom Armitage – Zurich and Vienna

The jokes are legion and the rivalry runs back for hundreds of years: Switzerland and Austria have, however, put their differences behind them for the Euro 2008 championships that they will host between them over the next three weeks. Just how similar are these two Alpine nations?

“What’s the difference between downtown Zurich and the Vienna Central Cemetery on a Friday night?” asks an Austrian friend of mine when I enquired about the rivalry between her nation and Switzerland. “There’s more going on at the cemetery.”

As jokes go its hardly original, but it betrays the deeply ingrained rivalries that exist between Austria and Switzerland, neighbouring countries that share just 160 kms of border. To each nation, the others are somehow slow, backward or boring, and representative of the yokel-ish character that both cultures have tried hard to shed in the years since the end of World War Two.

Now the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament is intended to bring the two countries closer together, by dispersing the competition’s matches, and the expected millions of visiting fans and their spending money, across eight cities – four Swiss and four Austrian. But examples of cross-border cooperation appear few.

One exception is the ‘Swiss Beach’ project at Strandbar Hermann on Vienna’s Danube Canal, an adaptation of a popular urban ‘beach bar’ the likes of which have sprung up all over European cities in recent summers. Austrians and their guests will be treated to Swiss flag decoration, rösti, raclette and Swiss music (including hits in dialect) – but presumably not Swiss beer or Swiss prices.

The reasons for Swiss-Austrian rivalry go back years but, as with many other countries, they have been kept alive through sporting events. Austrian football fans gleefully recall the 1954 World Cup quarter final in Lausanne in which the visitors beat Switzerland 7-5 in a 35-degrees-celsius heat wave. Austria’s form has since fallen: they are ranked 101st in the world by FIFA and wouldn’t stand a chance to qualify for the tournament were it not for the rule that hosts get free pass to the first round.

Historically, Austria is the stronger team of the two: Austria has beaten Switzerland in terms of wins in international matches played by 25 to 10, with 5 draws. However, Switzerland is the better exporter of national talent: 77 percent of Switzerland’s home-grown footballers play in foreign teams. Just 29 percent of Austrians do the same.

Away from football, the traditional competition between the Swiss and the Austrians has played out on the ski slopes: seen as the powerhouses of the Alpine sport, Switzerland and Austria have vied for the top spot over the years. After a brief period of Swiss superiority in the 1980s, Austria has recently become the leader in terms of international medals and points and currently dominate Alpine skiing like no other nation.

The real measure of the nations’ changing fortunes, however, lies in their economic development over the years. At the beginning of this century, the economic and financial differences between Switzerland and Austria were stark: in 2001, the Austrian economy, for years focused on tourism, agriculture and some heavy industry, was still awaiting the economic boost that had been predicted after it joined the European Union in 1995.

In 2000, Austrian economic growth was relatively strong at 3 percent but momentum slowed into 2001, the OECD said in a report at the time. In the same year, Switzerland saw growth of more than 3 percent and companies in the more diversified Swiss economy were more optimistic than they had been in a decade.

Eight years later, gross domestic product (GDP) in Austria is predicted to grow more strongly than in Switzerland in the coming years, an indication of the rapid catch-up process that the Austrian economy has played. In fact, one need only look at the performance of the two countries’ stock markets to understand what has happened: since 2003, the Swiss SMI has risen 65 percent while Austria’s ATX is up a staggering 327 percent — a staggering rebound. If only their football team could do as well.