Switzerland's neutrality

Setting the scene

From time to time during the existence of this website we have pointed out the historical mythmaking that underlies much of the image of Switzerland in the minds of its people and of its government (if we can permit the latter to have a mind).

One of the most deep-seated of these myths is that of the country's 'armed neutrality'. The concept has its roots in the political and revolutionary chaos of 19th century Europe. At the beginning of that century quite a few Swiss welcomed the cleansing effect of the French Revolution and Napoleon's demolition of the remains of the corrupt sub-feudalism that had been the dominant form of European government since the Treaty of Westphalia and which was still very active in Switzerland. Some Swiss rose up against their masters, Napoleon rocked up – as their saviour, so they thought – plundered the country's wealth, then lost interest and withdrew, leaving his fans to their fates.

The overthrow of Napoleon was followed by years of rebellion and repression throughout Europe. By the time the Swiss Confederation was founded in 1848 the Swiss had had enough of all this. They adopted an international posture of 'armed neutrality': leave us alone; we won't take sides; we won't attack you, but if attacked, we shall defend ourselves to the death.

Switzerland's neutrality is enshrined in that constitution.

In the good old days when the Swiss Army believed in its role, I occasionally met visitors to Switzerland who have arrived at times of military exercises and who have been amazed at the number of uniformed troops carrying their service weapons, filling up the trains and the stations. 'I thought Switzerland was neutral!' they exclaimed. Well yes, but what you are seeing is the face of armed neutrality.

Because of its neutrality Switzerland avoided becoming caught up in the slaughterhouses of the First and Second World Wars. The country also came through the Cold War without incident. True, Switzerland's arms manufacturers managed to sell weapons to most of the warring parties at some time or other but, hey, business is business!

Then the Russia-Ukraine war blew up and neutral Switzerland, now surrounded by the might of the European Union, was stuck. The USA and the European countries took sides, delivering money and weapons to Ukraine and enforcing sanctions on Russian businesses and assets. Many of these businesses had branch offices or even headquarters in Switzerland, a politically stable country with a solid economy, a solid currency and a low-tax business climate. In many countries in the world a company might expect its business to be nationalised or shut down and its assets purloined – that was sometimes the cost of doing business. But in Switzerland?

Worse was yet to come, when the Swiss found themselves potentially delivering arms, if not directly to the theatre of war, then through intermediaries.

What to do? The only thing that Switzerland could do was to bow to the Realpolitik of the situation. Did they really want to be the little country in which the Russian Federation's business interests were thriving undisturbed when all about was sanctioned?

The Swiss did what they had to – they really had no other option: Russian businesses in Switzerland were shut down, Russian assets seized and a form of words found that allowed Switzerland to deliver military products the the EU.

The Swiss government put on a couple of pantomime 'peace meetings' to cover their embarrassment (here and here) – and ended up just showing their own inconsequence to the world. When the Realpolitik got going, poor little Switzerland had nothing to say.

We have discussed the Swiss problem on numerous occasions on this website – too numerous to link to individually, but it is safe to say that Switzerland is currently stuck in a political and ideological jam arising from its interface with the rest of the modern world.

This left a bad taste in the mouths of those Swiss who believed their own mythmaking around neutrality. The mood music behind the sanctions decision – the new 'Framework Agreements' with the EU – had also upset the traditionalists in a number of respects: for example, European courts would be able to issue rulings to which Switzerland would have to submit. The traditionalists who fret about Switzerland's seeming abandonment of neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine war are the same traditionalists who fret about the EU Frameworks. so whatever decision is taken will have substantial knock-on effects on Swiss politics.

The people have spoken!

So the useful doctrine of neutrality that had slumbered without challenge for a century and a half has now become a hot issue for the traditionalists. And thus, since the politicians cannot solve the problem on their own they dump it on the poor, long-suffering population. But the neutrality traditionalists have taken a big risk in calling this referendum: if they lose and lose substantially, neutrality will become even more of a piece of Realpolitik and its constitutional formulation will be have much weaker force, weakening their future position of the traditionalists dramatically.

Today's world is a very big, complicated place with uncountable interdependencies. Switzerland cannot stand aside from this in splendid isolation; it has become dependant on other countries in so many ways: energy, food, transport, trade and so on. If the US President decides to hit you with massive tariffs there is nothing you can do about it. If the EU, short of electricity itself, shuts down the electricity interconnectors, ditto.

Today the people have spoken and their decision became clear just after lunch today (the Swiss being even more efficient at counting votes than the Germans). Unusually for such big, general questions the margin is unequivocally large: according to the forecast at 12:30 only 29 percent voted for the proposal to strengthen the force of the neutrality in the constitution against 71 percent against. This result is not expected to change significantly. So, the traditionalists are going to have to put their thinking caps on and the winners will have much more freedom to interpret neutrality according to their needs.