Helvetistan: when Switzerland joined the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund back in 1992, it gained some unsavoury freshman classmates. Swiss News looks at how the Swiss now leads this motley 'Helvetistan' crew.

Swiss News › Nbr. 2005, January 2005

Author: Shepard, Lyn

Position:: Politics

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Politics

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Helvetistan: when Switzerland joined the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund back in 1992, it gained some unsavoury freshman classmates. Swiss News looks at how the Swiss now leads this motley 'Helvetistan' crew.

There was something quite incongruous about 'the new kids on the block from the start ...

A quirk of fate had bunched wealthy neutral Switzerland in the Bretton Woods institutions along with Poland, Azerbaijan, four scruffy" Central Asian countries named 'Stan' and what since 2001 has become Serbia and Montenegro.

The New Crowd

Journalists seized on that bizarre 1992 moment by dubbing the new eight-member...

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