ZERMATT, Switzerland — Way up in the snowy Alps, the border between
Switzerland and
Italy has shifted due to a melting glacier, putting the location of an Italian
mountain lodge in dispute.
اضافة اعلان
The borderline
runs along a drainage divide — the point at which melt water will run down
either side of the mountain towards one country or the other.
But the Theodul
Glacier’s retreat means the watershed has crept towards the Rifugio Guide del
Cervino, a refuge for visitors near the 3,480m Testa Grigia peak — and it is
gradually sweeping underneath the building.
Frederic, a
59-year-old tourist, opens the narrow wooden door to enter the refuge’s
restaurant, the light flooding in from outside.
The menu is in
Italian, not German, and priced in euros rather than Swiss francs. Nonetheless,
at the counter, he orders a slice of pie and asks: “So — are we in Switzerland
or in Italy?”
It is a question
worth asking as it has been the subject of diplomatic negotiations that started
in 2018 and concluded with a compromise last year — but the details remain
secret.
When the refuge
was built on a rocky outcrop in 1984, its 40 beds and long wooden tables were
entirely in Italian territory.
But now
two-thirds of the lodge, including most of the beds and the restaurant, is
technically perched in southern Switzerland.
The issue has
come to the fore because the area, which relies on tourism, is located at the
top of one of the world’s largest ski resorts, with a major new development
including a cable car station being constructed a few meters away.
An agreement was
hammered out in Florence in November 2021 but the outcome will only be revealed
once it is rubber-stamped by the Swiss government — which will not happen
before 2023.
“We agreed to
split the difference,” Alain Wicht, chief border official at Switzerland’s
national mapping agency Swisstopo told AFP.
His job includes
looking after the 7,000 boundary markers along landlocked Switzerland’s 1,935km
border with Austria, France,
Germany, Italy, and Liechtenstein.
Wicht attended
the negotiations, where both parties made concessions to find a solution. “Even
if neither side came out winners, at least nobody lost”, he said.
Where the
Italian-Swiss border traverses Alpine glaciers, the frontier follows the
watershed line.
But the Theodul
Glacier lost almost a quarter of its mass between 1973 and 2010. That exposed
the rock underneath to the ice, altering the drainage divide and forcing the
two neighbors to redraw around a 100m-long stretch of their border.
Wicht said that
such adjustments were frequent and generally settled by comparing readings by
surveyors from the border countries, without getting politicians involved.
“We are
squabbling over territory that isn’t worth much,” he said. But he added that
this “is the only place where we suddenly had a building involved”, giving
“economic value” to the land.
His Italian
counterparts declined to comment “due to the complex international situation”.
Former Swisstopo
chief Jean-Philippe Amstein said such disputes are typically resolved by
exchanging parcels of land of equivalent surface area and value.
In this case,
“Switzerland is not interested in obtaining a piece of glacier,” he explained,
and “the Italians are unable to compensate for the loss of Swiss surface area”.
While the outcome
remains secret, the refuge’s caretaker, 51-year-old Lucio Trucco, has been told
it will stay on Italian soil.
“The refuge
remains Italian because we have always been Italian,” he said.
“The menu is
Italian, the wine is Italian, and the taxes are Italian.”
The years of
negotiation have delayed the refuge’s renovation — the villages either side of
the border have not been able to issue a building permit.
The works will
therefore not be completed in time for the scheduled opening of a new cable car
up the Italian side of the Klein Matterhorn mountain in late 2023.
The slopes are
only accessible from the Swiss ski resort of Zermatt.
While some
mid-altitude resorts are preparing for the end of Alpine skiing due to global
warming, skiing is possible throughout the summer on the Zermatt-Cervinia
slopes, even if such activities contribute to the glacier’s retreat.
“That’s why we
have to enhance the area here because it will surely be the last one to die,”
said Trucco.
For now, on Swisstopo’s
maps, the solid pink band of the Swiss border remains a dashed line as it
passes the refuge.
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