The Best Choice Ever

December 30^th, 1813 marked the end of a fifteen-year period of French rule over Geneva (and other parts of today’s Switzerland). Geneva was liberated by the Austrian Count Ferdinand Bubna von Littiz. The restauration of the political system by the old aristocratic rulers took shape by the announcement of the (former) independent Republic of Geneva on January 1^st, 1814, but had to be changed as a result of the accession to the confederation in 1815. Although various (catholic) cantons initially resisted the accession of Geneva to the Confederation, Geneva joined the ‘Eidgenossenschaft’ as twenty second canton on Mai 19^th, 1815, Treaty for the Admission of Geneva (and Neuchâtel and Vallais).The Great Powers and Swiss diplomats from various cantons supported this solution at the Congresses of Vienna and Paris in 1815 and the agreements reached later in Turin in 1816.
It should be the best choice ever. Geneva escaped two world wars, became the world’s city of diplomacy, law and peace, flourishes economically, is a part of a sovereign, decentralized and democratic confederation in the center of Europe and is not involved in monetary, bureaucratic, centralistic and undemocratic European adventurism. It was a long way from the town Genua, later Genava, in the Bello Gallico (Julius Cesar 58 BC) to Geneva (Genève in French, German Genf), to the canton and city Geneva in 2016, but history and geographic location were relatively kind to Geneva, although the city did not escape Europe’s political, religious and economic turmoil completely, the past two hundred years are worth to celebrate and remember. (Source: CHA, Genève son histoire et ses institutions (Geneva 2004), see also www.ge200.ch).