“The ‘Citizens’ Committee for our Security – No to halving the Swiss Armed Forces’ takes the referendum against the alleged ‘development” of the Armed Forces (WEA) […] What are the main reasons why this referendum is necessary?
[…] With this fourth reform of the army within 25 years – after Armee95, ArmeeXXI, Entwicklungsschritt 2008/2011 – the authorised personnel strength would be halved already for the third time – down to a remainder of 100,000 members of the Swiss Armed Forces (AdA)1. Approximately 24,000 of those would be combat troops. For constant operations during 265 days around the clock, for example to protect vital objects, there would be only left 1,200 AdA for the Swiss territory all over.
An army that would be halved could not carry out the tasks that it is responsible for and which it is charged of by our Federal Constitution. According to Article 1 of our Federal Constitution the army has to “protect the ‘liberty, independence, security’. According to Article 58 the army has got the task to ‘defend the country and its population and the civil authorities against threats’.
An army that is halved and consists of 100,000 members of the army, would not correspond any more to the constitutional principle of militia, neither to armed neutrality.
The proposition is supported by outdated documents as the ‘Sicherheitspolitischer Bericht 2010’ (Report on Security Policy 2010). Since then the military and strategic threat situation has degraded also in Europe fundamentally and massively. The Federal Council is trying in vain to make some improvements in the ‘Sicherheitspolitischer Bericht 2016’ and to justify by that the proposition ‘WEA’. Significant participants in the legislative process by consultation are rejecting the report, for example the Swiss Trade Association […] and the Society of Swiss Officers.
The referendum period runs until 7 July 2016. It is a matter of collecting 50,000 signatures so that ‘WEA’ has to be submitted to the vote by the people.” •
Source: armee-halbierung-nein.ch
1 In the early 90ies, there were appr. 800,000 AdA
(Translation Current Concerns)
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