New Eglisee indoor swimming pool to open
After a year of renovations and construction work, the Eglisse indoor swimming pool with its new covered hall will open in the coming weeks. Construction experts on Thursday undertook an on-site inspection along with and staff from the Office for Sports of the Canton of Basel-Stadt. The new venue will be initially only open for sports associations and will over time become available to the wider public.
“The pool is finished now and is looking good as well,” government member and head of the department for education, Conradin Cramer, said. He described the renovation of the swimming pool as an “historical event” for the “swimming and sports city” of Basel. The swimmers’ association of both Basels has been campaigning for a new sports venue such as this for 60 years. The Eglisee swimming pool has been fitted with a new covered hall so that it can remain open during winter. As a practical side effect, the exhaust heat of the ice rink above will be used to heat the swimming pool water during that time of the year.
For operational reasons, the reopening of the venue to the public will be made step by step. At first, the swimming pool will only be available to sports associations. Then – after the seasonal closing of the St Jakob public outdoor pools – early swimmers with season tickets will be able to swim all week from 6am to 8am at the Eglisee. With this step, the Eglisee will take over the “early swimming” programme, currently being run at the Rialto public pool, which will then open as of 9am. It was first hoped that the new swimming pool at Eglisee would have been available to sports associations as of next Monday. However, the escape routes have not yet met all legal requirements, and the fire police still have to give their approval for its opening. However, the cantonal authorities are certain that the problems will be solved within the next two weeks.
With the start of the ice rink season as of 28th October, the swimming pool Eglisee will open for the public for eight hours per day. At least two swimming lanes are going to be accessible during these opening hours.
The Grand Council of Basel had approved the construction of the covered air hall and a renovation of the cooling unit at Eglisee on 11November 2015. In total, the project cost 14,8 million Swiss francs. The swimmers’ association of both Basels is responsible for the supervision and operation of the venue.
Apart from being available for early swimmers between 6am and 8am, the indoor swimming pool will be open between 11am and 2pm as well as between 5pm and 8pm from Monday to Friday. On weekends, the opening times are 12pm to 2pm and 5pm to 9pm. During holidays, there are special opening times.
Bernhard Burgener plans to buy Constantin media group
FCB president Bernhard Burgener is planning another attempt to acquire the “Constantin Medien” media company . It is said that he wants to “re-conquer” the group.
Mr Burgener and allied investors hold about 30 per cent of Constantin’s shares. At the moment, the value of the entire group is put at over 200 million Euros at the stock exchange. The film production company “Constantin Film”, the TV channel “Sport 1”, the “Schweizer Highlight” group and the sports rights company “Team” (which markets Champions League games) all belong to “Constantin Medien” and create an overall revenue of half a billion Euros.
According to the website “persoenlich.com”, Mr Burgener wants to “re-conquer” the group. “I am working on a takeover offer for Constantin Media following legal requirements,” Mr Burgener said in an article in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” paper. Mr Burgener is also president of FC Basel.
Rhine Valley train route to reopen five days earlier than planned
The important North-South train route between Basel and Karlsruhe has been blocked at Rastatt for more than a month. Now, the Rhine Valley route is set to open to trains again soon – five days earlier than planned - on 2October. Nevertheless, the Federal government is taking additional measures.
The Deutsche Bahn (DB) announced the news on Thursday. Since 12August 2017, the North-South connection, which is important for the entire rail traffic in Europe, was blocked due to a construction mishap. The train tracks at Rastatt sank during a tunnel construction when water and soil had entered the ground. Traffic has been blocked since then, and replacement buses are in use.
On Thursday, the traffic-heavy route was blocked again, further south from Rastatt: A fallen tree had shut down the route near Emmendingen in both directions for several hours. The DB announced that a tree on private property fell and struck an overhead line. The Rhine Valley route above Freiburg was blocked for several hours.
This incident at Emmendingen was dealt with on Thursday. Nobody was injured. But not only train passengers were angry about the situation: Trade associations spoke of “huge deficits” due to the incident.
The Federal Office for Traffic (BAV) therefore decided to pay freight transport operators additional compensations, it announced on Thursday. This is to counteract the negative effects of train interruptions, as there are higher costs and less revenue in such circumstances.
The allowance of compensated freight on alternative routes will thus be higher with immediate effect. Trains and freight rerouted via the Brenner or other Alpine crossings abroad will also be compensated, the Federal government stated.
The compensation on affected freight trains on Alpine routes was increased by 300 francs per train. The Federal government expects freight companies to hand over a substantial part of these additional funds to train companies for financial support.
Plans for supplementary loan
The BAV expects that the compensation loan of about 150 million francs for 2017 will not be exhausted even after these additional measures have been implemented. Since a direct transfer of the rest of this loan for next year is not possible, the Federal Department for Environment, Transport, Energy, and Communication (UVEK) plans to ask the Federal government for a supplementary loan for 2018.
As a result, the step-by-step reduction of compensations planned for next year would be more moderate. This in turn would allow Alpine freight traffic to establish itself anew on the market and to make up for losses caused by the far-reaching problems of the Rhine Valley route. A supplementary loan would need the Federal government’s approval in January 2018 and a parliamentary approval in June 2018.
Economic researchers of BAK Basel expect increased financial growth for 2018
Economic researchers of the BAK Basel institute expect a strong acceleration of the Swiss business sector and revised their 2018 growth outlooks upwards. However, they lowered their forecasts for the current year.
Due to a weak first half-year, merely a GDP increase of 1,0 per cent is still possible for 2017, BAK Basel informed on Thursday. This June, BAK economists had still anticipated a growth of 1,4 per cent. Current developments make economists very confident for 2018: they now expect a GDP growth of 2,3 per cent instead of 1,8 per cent (as stated in June).
Basic economic conditions have become markedly better since the beginning of 2017, BAK Basel stated. Because of the positive mood among Swiss economic operators and the upward trend of the industrial sector, domestic economy is expected to increase again.
The global economy is also on the rise once more. Particularly the Eurozone – Switzerland’s most important commercial partner – is on a stable growth trajectory. In addition, the recent depreciation of the Swiss franc against the Euro should support the Swiss export sector and the investment activities of companies.