Switzerland\u2019s biggest political party wants to double down on neutrality, just as conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East make a nonaligned stance more difficult to sustain.<\/p>\n
The right-wing Swiss People\u2019s Party, which is set to win the largest share of the vote in elections later this month, is seeking to collect 100,000 signatures by May to trigger a vote on whether to enshrine \u201ceverlasting\u201d neutrality into the constitution. That would allow it to roll back sanctions against Russia that won praise from President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin, on the other hand, says Switzerland is no longer a neutral state \u2014 a criticism that touches a nerve with the nation of 8.9 million people.<\/p>\n
More than 90% of the population still supports neutrality. For the Swiss, an impartial stance is a \u201cnational myth of almost religious consecration,\u201d according to Edgar Bonjour, who wrote several volumes on the history of neutrality. While Finland recently joined the NATO military alliance and Sweden seeks to do the same, that prospect is unthinkable in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
However, the Kremlin\u2019s assault on Ukraine and Hamas\u2019 attack on Israel are exposing the contradictions of Swiss neutrality, which can be traced back to medieval cantons hiring out mercenaries to warring European states, without taking sides. This week, the government backed labeling Hamas a terrorist organization, taking a further step away from its nonaligned status. <\/p>\n
Some Swiss commentators want Switzerland to go further, and warn that a strict neutrality risks deterring foreign investment.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeutrality only made sense when our neighbors in Europe were constantly at war, and so it\u2019s not really in the best interest of Switzerland anymore,\u201d said Thomas Borer, a former Swiss diplomat who in the late 1990s led the government\u2019s task force examining Swiss banking\u2019s role during the Nazi era. \u201cIf we had not supported sanctions, then we would really have lost business.\u201d<\/p>\n
A perpetual Swiss neutrality was enshrined at the Treaty of Paris in 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon. Switzerland follows the legal obligations imposed on neutral states by the 1907 Hague Conventions.<\/p>\n
A history of political fence-sitting barely survived World War II, when Switzerland violated its own neutrality by granting loans and selling arms to Nazi Germany. The neutral nation \u2014 while helping wounded soldiers and children \u2014 also sealed its borders to thousands of Jewish refugees.<\/p>\n
The People\u2019s Party, which has previously defended the country\u2019s decision to turn away at least 20,000 people fleeing the Nazis, cites history to bolster its advocacy of neutrality.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistory shows it: Switzerland has not meddled in foreign affairs and was largely spared in World War II,\u201d reads the party\u2019s program for upcoming national elections.<\/p>\n
While none of the biggest political parties oppose neutrality, the Social Democrats has warned that Switzerland mustn\u2019t hide behind it and should be an advocate of international law and human rights. The conservative Center Alliance has expressed similar sentiments, saying that the country mustn\u2019t play into the hands of an aggressor under the pretext of neutrality.<\/p>\n
The People\u2019s Party neutrality initiative was spurred by its opposition to the Swiss government\u2019s decision to follow European Union sanctions on Russia. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou make Switzerland de facto a henchman for foreign interests in our own country,\u201d party lawmaker Roger Koeppel said during a parliamentary debate last month. \u201cYou are corroding prosperity, you are attacking the middle class, and you are damaging the dignity and reputation of our country.\u201d <\/p>\n
Imposing sanctions means raising bilateral trade costs, while being neutral lowers those costs because you can do business with anyone, according to Stefan Legge, head of tax and trade policy at the Institute for Law and Economics at the University of St. Gallen. At the same time, with more than half of its trade being with Western-allied nations, Switzerland couldn\u2019t afford to be entirely neutral, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing neutral is beneficial, political allegiances come at a cost,\u201d said Legge. \u201cWhat has helped Switzerland is not wanting to shape or educate the world, but rather to just do business.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine has exposed the risks of Swiss neutrality for some businesses. Switzerland doesn\u2019t allow locally made arms to be sent to conflict areas by buyers, as part of its longstanding neutrality rules. Contrary to the breaches in WWII, the country has been blocking weapon shipments from Germany, Spain and Denmark to Ukraine, drawing international criticism.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s threatening the viability of Switzerland\u2019s small, but symbolically important, arms industry, which has been a cornerstone of the nation\u2019s so-called armed neutrality. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tightrope walk, but at the moment we risk companies with key technologies in the defense sector leaving the country,\u201d said Jan Atteslander, foreign business chief of economiesuisse, which represents Swiss industry. <\/p>\n
The latest debate on neutrality is also informed by wider security considerations, and the geographical good fortune of Switzerland being surrounded by friendly European nations. Unlike Finland, which fought two wars against Soviet troops, the Alpine nation is far from Russian front lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe average Swiss thinks correctly that life is kind of cosy and the big bad Russian bear that weighed on the minds of Swedes and Finns, doesn\u2019t really feature around Switzerland,\u201d said Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. \u201cThe Swiss are willing to look the other way, but that\u2019s nothing new.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
(With assistance from Kati Pohjanpalo.)<\/p>\n
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