Swiss neutrality or war alliance with NATO?

Fateful vote in Switzerland

by Jean-Paul Vuilleumier, chief-editor of “Swiss Standpoint”

(20 September 2024) On 29 August 2024, the “Report of the Security Policy Study Commission” was presented at the Bern Media Centre at the invitation of Federal President Viola Amherd. The “Study Commission”, set up in June 2023 by Viola Amherd, head of the “Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport” (DDPS), has written a 70-page report on how, in her view, a “future-oriented security policy” should be designed.¹

However, the commission’s proposals are in stark contrast to Switzerland’s existing legal and political foundations of neutrality and to the content of the federal popular initiative to “Safeguarding Swiss neutrality”.²

Outlook on the report

The “Study Commission” analyses the current geopolitical situation as follows:

The global situation is characterised by three key developments: the challenge of the political, economic and military superiority of the United States, the conflict between autocracies and democracies, and a new self-understanding of the global South. We can expect a world disorder because the system of collective security has been damaged.

The fact that the geopolitical situation can be viewed quite differently has been explained many times by various authors in the “Swiss Standpoint”.³

The “Study Commission” draws the following conclusions from their analysis:

Switzerland is affected by the developments mentioned “directly or indirectly”. As a transport and energy hub, with its financial system and open world economy, it is “an attractive target”. It could “serve as a starting point for affecting Europe and thus more or less directly provoking NATO”.

Most commission members apparently considered it necessary to

“revise Switzerland’s policy of neutrality”. Switzerland should “not represent a security gap in Europe”. Its geographical position in the middle of the EU makes “the necessity of defence cooperation obvious”.

Furthermore, it pleads

“for a political understanding of neutrality that is not based solely on a doctrinaire interpretation of international law of the outdated Hague Convention” (p. 28).

The attack on the proven neutrality policy is thus followed by the attack on the law of neutrality.

As a supervisor for the path to NATO, Ms Amherd has also appointed the long-standing head of NATO’s so-called “Munich Security Conference”, Wolfgang Ischinger, to the commission. No wonder that NATO’s and Switzerland’s security policy views are becoming more and more similar ...

Neutrality enshrined in the Federal Constitution

In the report of the Amherd Commission, Switzerland’s self-image as a state with perpetual armed neutrality and successful good offices in crisis regions worldwide mutates into that of a state that poses a threat to Europe. This is an intolerable affront to our country and to us Swiss citizens.

Only a politically successful “network culture” and the tireless support of the federal popular initiative “Safeguarding Swiss neutrality” by a majority of the people and the cantons can stop the dangerous development of Amherd’s insecurity policy. It is essential to mobilise all forces to help achieve a breakthrough and thus to enshrine the basic principles of our Swiss neutrality in the Federal Constitution.

1 https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-102256.html und https://www.newsd.admin.ch/newsd/message/attachments/89334.pdf und https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yqFDp6xm0c

2 The petition was submitted to the Federal Chancellery in Bern on 11 April 2024 with around 133,000 certified signatures. The Federal Council has already recommended that it be rejected after an unusually short period of time. Next, the “Neutrality Initiative” which is supported by a broadly based political and social committee, will be debated in both chambers of parliament. This will be followed by a federal referendum, the timing of which is still unknown.

3 Alfred de Zayas: https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-en-recht/let-s-revive-f-d-roosevelt-s-four-freedoms-and-the-atlantic-charter.html

Michael von der Schulenburg: https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-en-recht/un-charter-the-ukraine-war-and-our-commitment-to-peace.html

EisenhowerMediaNetwork: https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-en-international/the-u-s-should-be-a-force-for-peace-in-the-world.html

Jacques Baud: https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-en-international/the-policy-of-the-usa-has-always-been-to-prevent-germany-and-russia-from-cooperating-more-closely.html

Jeffrey D. Sachs: https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-en-international/a-negotiated-peace-is-the-only-way-to-end-russia-s-war-on-ukraine.html

M.K. Bhadrakumar: https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-en-international/asian-fault-lines-of-biden-s-war-on-russia.html