Switzerland Rejects Initiative for Stricter Interpretation of Neutrality — BBC News World

In Switzerland, more than 70% of voters rejected an initiative for a stricter interpretation of the country’s traditional neutrality. The proposal would have prohibited Bern from imposing sanctions without UN approval and would also have hindered Switzerland’s closer ties with the NATO military alliance.

Sanctions and neutrality

As BBC News reports, the initiative was supported by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party. The federal government and all other major parties opposed it. Russia, an aggressor state, also openly supported the initiative.

Lukas Golder, co-director of the Gfs.bern research institute, told Swiss public broadcaster SRF that voters did not reject neutrality as such. According to him, the voting result demonstrated support for sanctions against Russia.

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Government position

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis emphasized during a televised debate that the country’s neutrality has always been applied with a certain degree of flexibility. He said that Switzerland does not plan to lift the ban on selling weapons to countries involved in conflicts, including Ukraine, and added that neutrality does not mean indifference to violations of international rules.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has once again intensified the debate over Switzerland’s centuries-old policy of non-alignment. Switzerland’s neutrality was internationally recognized in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna, while its legal foundations were defined by the 1907 Hague Convention, which prohibited the supply of weapons to warring states. Switzerland previously refused Germany’s request for ammunition for tanks that were to be sent to Kyiv.