Switzerland, better known for cuckoo clocks and mountains (although cuckoo clocks are actually a German invention) seem to have quite a reputation for annoying the EU chattering classes these days.

Eight months after a referendum to ban minaret construction was endorsed by the electorate, news comes via Pravda (no, not the BBC) of an attempt to collect enough signatures for a referendum to reinstate the death penalty for paedophile murderers.

If the minaret result was enough to cause palpitations across the EU then I am sure that a death penalty reinstatement would certainly liven up EU politics.

As a participant but not member of the EU, the Swiss can do whatever they want and if prior results are anything to go by then they may well come up with the goods again this time.

It is just a shame that the UK is now the EU’s doormat ruled by our own spineless lickspittles or we could be joining them in mischief too and probably be a whole lot better off for it.

Switzerland is ready to challenge European traditions again. The controversy about the prohibition on the construction of minarets in this country had hardly subsided before the small nation prepared another surprise to the tolerant Europe. The Swiss started collecting signatures to conduct the referendum to reinstate death penalty.

Capital punishment was officially canceled in Switzerland in 1942, but was valid during the war period. The last execution by shooting took place in Switzerland in 1944. Twelve death sentences were enforced in the country during the WWII years: eleven of them were about the citizens of Nazi Germany, whose actions caused considerable damage to the security of Switzerland.

What made the Alpine nation think about the retrieval of such anachronism? The initiative was set forth by a group of seven people, whose relatives had fallen victims to pedophile rapists. The members of the group believe that Switzerland should retrieve death penalty “for those committing a murder or responsible for a death resulting from sexual abuse of children, sexual violence or rape.”

One shall assume that the restoration of death penalty in the country may trigger protests in Switzerland’s neighboring nations. They will obviously pay attention to the fact that such will expressions contradicts to the European Convention for Human Rights. It would not be a first for Switzerland, though: the country has been previously accused of the same twice. Whatever the case, the authorities of the Alpine nation found no obstacles for collecting signatures.

The group will have to collect 100,000 signatures for the referendum to occur on February 24, 2012. We do not know what common people think about the initiative, but the leaders of many political parties of the country treated it extremely negatively.

I do hope they succeed.