The government in Bern has abandoned two centuries of neutrality to side with Ukraine. Since then, the country has been debating the consequences, “dirty money from all over the world” – and a new military orientation.
After the pictures and videos of the dead in Butscha became known worldwide, Switzerland also reacted with outrage. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted on April 3: “These events and all other suspected violations of international humanitarian law urgently require an independent international investigation.” The wording provided insights into the strategy of the government in Bern. While Germany, other EU countries, the USA, Great Britain, Japan and Australia spoke of war crimes and pointed the finger at Russia, Switzerland refrained from blaming the Kremlin for the “events and alleged violations” of human rights.
Criticism came immediately. The government – for example by the Social Democrats – has again been certified as having a hesitant attitude in order to preserve Switzerland’s business model, which is closely linked to neutrality. The Alpine republic had officially advertised “legal certainty as well as political stability and neutrality” to investors in Russia. Along with Great Britain, Switzerland is the land of milk and honey for Russian oligarchs and the super-rich. A whole industry has sprung up around it. Most of the Russian raw material trade is processed through Switzerland, where masses of antiques belonging to Russian owners are stored.
After the start of the war of aggression against Ukraine, the country initially wanted to withdraw to the position that sanctions imposed by the EU could not be circumvented via companies in Zurich or Geneva. That alone caused horror at home and abroad, as the impression was created that the Confederates put political tradition above the suffering of the Ukrainians. Bern corrected himself and effectively abolished neutrality. Federal President Ignazio Cassis – a kind of head of government – spoke of a “unique step on this scale”.
“Dirty Money from Around the World”
In other words: Switzerland would like to be like before after the end of the war. This led to the dance of eggs expressed in the State Department’s tweet on the Bucha massacre: the deaths are mourned without blaming Russia. The Social Democrats (SP) criticize the fact that they are far too hesitant in enforcing the sanctions – regardless of the war in Ukraine. “We have to make sure that in Switzerland we don’t just accept dirty money from all over the world and then look the other way,” said the SP chairwoman Mattea Meyer the “Tages-Anzeiger”. Instead of just blocking funds, they would have to be confiscated.
Private individuals and institutions should report whether they know of assets that fall under the conditions. There is no task force like the one in Germany that is specifically looking for values. The result of previous efforts: by April 7, 7.5 billion francs were frozen – the Swiss Bankers Association assumes 150 to 200 billion francs in Russian possession in the Alpine republic. It is unknown how much of this money belongs to people affected by the sanctions. After the start of the war, owners had several days to get property out of the country. The SP is therefore calling for a task force based on the international model.
Federal President Cassis, who is also Foreign Minister, defends his course, which he explains as follows: “The policy of neutrality is not dogma, but a flexible instrument of our foreign and security policy.” The liberal advises that the state and diplomacy should keep a cool head. First, the International Criminal Court must investigate who is responsible for the atrocities in Bucha and elsewhere.
“End of Hedgehog Switzerland”
However, the criticism seems to have left its mark. On April 8, after the Russian bombing of the Kramatorsk train station, the State Department reported many dead civilians, including children, speak again on Twitter. It declared that it had vehemently condemned the “potential war crime” to the Russian ambassador in Bern. In the UN General Assembly, Switzerland voted to kick Russia out of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The debate on the implementation of the sanctions is accompanied by a discussion on the reinterpretation of neutrality. Cédric Wermuth, another chairman of the SP alongside Meyer, advocates not looking the other way: “Anyone who does business with autocrats is not neutral, but finances their regime and their wars.”
Cassis’ party leader, the chairman of the federal FDP, Thierry Burkart, pleads for an “end of hedgehog Switzerland” and wants to “massively strengthen the cooperation with NATO that has existed for years”. On the Liberals’ website, he wrote that Russia’s attack on Ukraine “relentlessly” revealed that Switzerland was in a security impasse. “Neither from a technological nor from a financial point of view, a stand-alone defense can be guaranteed today.” An attack “on us” is hardly imaginable – if it were, then it would probably hit the democracies in the neighborhood. Therefore, Switzerland must be prepared. However, due to its neutrality, joining NATO is not an option.
The clock thing
The national-conservative Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which is part of the government like the FDP and the SP, opposes this line – formal coalitions are not formed in Bern. At its conference last weekend in Chur, the SVP passed a resolution with only one dissenting vote, in which the delegates promoted armed neutrality through stronger defense capabilities, but not in NATO or the common security and defense policy of the EU.
The SVP member of the National Council Roger Köppel, editor-in-chief of “Weltwoche”, received a standing ovation for his speech. In it he called the statements made by FDP leader Burkart “extremely dangerous”. Joining NATO means: “Then Swiss soldiers will come back in body bags from the battlefields opened by other nations. We must not allow that.” Under pressure from a “lava of emotions” from abroad and “many Swiss companies”, the government revealed its previous position “as if in an act of self-hypnosis”.
The example of Russia shows where this is leading, explained Köppel. “You’ve read about these watches,” he told delegates. According to his own statements, Köppel had in one on March 24th podcast in his newspaper that Russian authorities had confiscated Swiss luxury watches worth millions two days earlier in Moscow – Köppel sees this as revenge for the Kremlin’s abandonment of neutrality. Since the editor-in-chief is suspected of having disclosed secret information from Parliament, investigations are now underway against him. Regarding his motive for speaking about the watches, he said: “They wanted to keep that under wraps in Bern.”