What is a neutral country allowed to do? Specifically: What is Switzerland allowed to do? This question has occupied politicians in recent weeks – and thus also GLP President Jürg Grossen. His Green Liberals go further than any other party in the neutrality debate. In the “Samstagsrundschau” Grossen explains which paths he sees for Switzerland.
SRF News: Is the election to the UN Security Council really a “historic step for Switzerland”?
Jürg Grossen: I’m a little wary of “historical”. But it’s a very important step. After 20 years as a UN member state, it makes sense that we have a seat on this most important body – even if it’s only for two years. It is important that Switzerland does not just sit in the ranks of spectators when it comes to international coordination and peacebuilding.
Federal President Cassis has set himself the goal of building bridges to the veto powers USA, Russia and China. A realistic goal?
It makes a lot of sense if Switzerland tries to build these bridges and doesn’t allocate itself to just one side – and tries to stay in dialogue again and again. Historically speaking, Switzerland is very good at this. We only know in hindsight whether it succeeds.
Neutrality also allows you to clearly take a stand.
Nevertheless: neutral Switzerland has taken a clear position on the Ukraine war, the UN Security Council’s biggest issue?
Yes, the internationally imposed sanctions were also supported. But in this case the situation is clear: an aggressor, Russia, is attacking the sovereign state of Ukraine, blatantly violating international law. The neutrality also allows you to clearly position yourself here.
Nevertheless the SVP is afraid for our neutrality. There is a danger of being caught in the crossfire between the veto powers.
You can have respect for it. Historically, however, Switzerland has always interpreted neutrality somewhat differently during all wars – in the Second World War, in the Balkans and in the Iraq War. It has always been a somewhat elastic term. This is how it should be in the future.
A kind of political identity search is currently underway – what else does neutrality mean? The GLP goes further than anyone else and believes that Switzerland should be able to deliver weapons directly to a war zone. How so?
We said that armaments could be delivered. We would like to start a discussion about what to do when an aggressor attacks another state.
Ukraine has to defend itself on its own territory and does not even get protective helmets or vests from Switzerland.
Ukraine has to defend itself on its own territory and does not even get protective helmets or vests from Switzerland. It is also not possible for Denmark to pass on tanks or Germany to pass on ammunition that came from Switzerland 20 years ago. We think that should be possible in the case of a clear violation of international law – and if a democracy that also defends our values is affected.
When you talk about supplying arms to democracies, the question arises: is Turkey, for example, still a democracy for you? Who defines that?
A valid question. That has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. We just have an explicit black and white situation right now in a world that has a lot of shades of grey. We have to be willing to dive into those shades of gray. Without making an extremist demand: we certainly don’t want to deliver offensive weapons anywhere. But defensive weapons to help someone who needs to defend themselves on their own territory – that seems debatable to us.
The conversation was conducted by Eveline Kobler.