Summer session 2025: Neutrality initiative in the Council of States

The Council of States will take a position on the Neutrality Initiative on 19 June 2025. The members of the Council are called upon to recommend the initiative to the voting public for approval without a counter-proposal. This would be a courageous step towards refocussing on what neutrality means in the Swiss understanding – across all party boundaries. The people and the cantons will decide on the initiative next year.

A refocus on the
Swiss understanding of neutrality

The Federal Council’s main objection in its dispatch on the Neutrality Initiative of 27 November 2024 was that it wanted to write a “rigid” understanding of neutrality into the constitution, calling for “a departure from the proven flexibility in the application of neutrality” and “limiting Switzerland’s room for manoeuvre in foreign policy”.¹
  That’s right: the signatories of the initiative actually intend to turn away from the Federal Council’s current foreign policy, which is moving further and further away from Swiss-style neutrality. They want Switzerland to refocus on the understanding of neutrality that our ancestors struggled to establish and consolidate over the centuries. Until a few decades ago, it was not necessary to include neutrality as a principle in the Federal Constitution, as it was a natural part of the Swiss understanding of the state. Even today, neutrality is firmly anchored in the minds of the majority of the Swiss population, despite constant attacks from within and without.
  Neutrality is indispensable for the credibility of Swiss peace policy. The Federal Council has largely squandered this credibility in recent years. It is not enough to attach the label “in accordance with neutrality” to every violation of neutrality – the so-called “flexible” application. Whether our neutrality is credible or not is decided abroad, and not only in the Western world.
  By enshrining it as a principle of foreign policy in Art. 54a of the Federal Constitution, the initiative aims to remove neutrality from the short-term thinking of politicians and strengthen the backing of a reliable foreign policy.

Counteraction to the paradigm shift
in the 1993 neutrality report

In its dispatch, the Federal Council claims that the Neutrality Initiative “ends 175 years of successful constitutional practice of flexible handling of neutrality” (p. 19). In reality, the principle of neutrality as a pillar of the Swiss understanding of the state was never fundamentally called into question until the end of the Cold War. The break only came with the Neutrality Report of 1993. In this remarkable report, the Federal Council anticipated practically the entire current radical departure from Switzerland’s neutral path. It declared security policy cooperation with other states or “participation in collective sanctions by the international community of states against a peace and lawbreaker” to be “compatible with the sense and spirit of neutrality”.² In 1996, the Federal Council put this paradigm shift into practice for the first time by joining the NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP) behind the backs of the voting public.
  Today, some politicians have unfortunately become accustomed to this reorientation of our foreign policy, with fatal consequences for Switzerland’s identity and for our peace policy, which is valued all over the world. The Neutrality Initiative aims to counteract this and pave the way for a Swiss neutrality worthy of the name.

Integration into NATO contradicts
the peace concept of Swiss neutrality

Neutrality Initiative, Federal Constitution Art. 54a revised:

1. Switzerland is neutral. Its neutrality is permanent and armed.

2. Switzerland does not join any military or defence alliances. The exception is the cooperation with these alliances in the event of a direct military attack on Switzerland or of preparations for an attack of this kind.

With close ties to political or military power blocs, Switzerland can neither protect itself from international conflicts nor fulfil its self-imposed obligation to contribute to peace and humanitarian aid throughout the burning world. The neutrality initiative does not prohibit Switzerland from engaging in technical exchanges with other European states for the purpose of national defence, for example, or for its air force to train abroad, which it has been doing for a long time. On the other hand, a whole series of recent decisions or initiatives in Bern contradict neutrality.

• F-35 stealth bombers: It is not in keeping with neutrality for Switzerland to buy stealth bombers from a major power for its national defence, which would only be useful in wars of aggression and would place our airspace under US military control.³

• Participation in NATO alliance exercises: On 13 June 2024, the National Council voted overwhelmingly against the participation of the Swiss Armed Forces in NATO alliance exercises by 118 votes to 69.⁴ On 13 June 2024, the National Council voted overwhelmingly against the participation of the Swiss Armed Forces in NATO alliance exercises by 118 votes to 69. It is difficult to understand why the Council of States rejected this proposal from the National Council on 18 September 2024 and decided to allow such exercises. We are printing the crystal-clear statement by Council of States member Heidi Z’graggen in the Council of States debate (see box) on the neutrality of NATO Art. 5 exercises.

• Participation in PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation): On 21 August 2024, the Federal Council approved Switzerland’s participation in two PESCO projects of EU security policy. In particular, participation in “Military Mobility” clearly contradicts the law of neutrality. The aim of “Military Mobility” is to “simplify cross-border troop transports by reducing administrative hurdles”, i.e., foreign troops could cross or fly over Switzerland. The non-EU states, but NATO members USA, Canada, Great Britain and Norway also participate in PESCO.⁵

• Military alliance with the EU: On 13 May 2025, the National Council’s Security Committee instructed the Federal Council, against a strong minority of 10 votes (out of a total of 26), to initiate negotiations with the EU on a security agreement.⁶ It goes without saying that such an agreement would violate Switzerland’s neutrality.

Peace as an ethical foundation
of neutrality: Sanctions
prolong war and suffering 

Neutrality Initiative, Federal Constitution Art. 54a revised:

3. Switzerland does not take part in military conflicts between third countries and does not impose non-military sanctions on warring states. The exceptions are obligations to the United Nations (UN) and measures to prevent the circumvention of non-military sanctions by other states.

“When there is a war, the neutral remains impartial towards the belligerents. Switzerland tried to do this in the First and Second World Wars and also during the Cold War, not always successfully, but nevertheless. Of course, we all have our personal sympathies and antipathies, but in terms of state policy, neutral Switzerland does not distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ states.” (Wolf Linder, Professor Emeritus of Political Science)
  Economic sanctions against states and individuals are incompatible with the principle of neutrality and violate human rights.
  From a neutrality policy perspective: On the day the EU sanctions against Russia were adopted, the foreign press ran the headline in unison: “Switzerland has given up its neutrality”. This categorisation by the international community damages the credibility of our country. The neutrality initiative therefore proposes that in such cases “measures be taken to prevent the circumvention of non-military coercive measures by other states”. In doing so, it confirms the neutrality-compatible middle course that the Federal Council has wisely chosen on several occasions, for example vis-à-vis Russia in 2014. There is no obvious reason why the Federal Council deviated from this approach within a few days in February 2022 and has since de facto automatically adopted one sanctions package after another from Brussels. Neutral Switzerland has always had to endure pressure and incomprehension from outside, for example during and after the Second World War.
  From a human rights perspective: “Sanctions prolong the war. Moreover, they hardly ever lead to regime change. Sanctions do not remedy the economic and social imbalances between the West and the poorer rest of the world, but exacerbate them. Switzerland therefore refrains from sanctions as a matter of principle, unless they are imposed by the UN Security Council.” (An Appeal by Leftists and Greens: ‘Yes’ to the Neutrality Initiative! from 7 November 2023)

‘Mediating and seeking
compromises is part of
Switzerland’s DNA’ (FDFA 2021) 

Neutrality Initiative, Federal Constitution Art. 54a revised:

4. Switzerland makes use of its permanent neutrality to prevent and resolve conflicts. It acts as a mediator.

It seems that Switzerland’s “DNA” has been forgotten by some politicians and media editors. The neutrality initiative aims to bring Swiss peace policy back into focus.
  “Good offices: effective dialogue makes great things possible”, can be read on the FDFA’s homepage. “In Switzerland, solutions are generally sought in consultation with all stakeholders. Swiss diplomacy is also based on this principle, and seeks to facilitate dialogue, for example through good offices. Geneva can be offered as a venue for political talks [...] Mediation and seeking compromises are in Switzerland’s DNA, both in our own political processes and in our foreign policy cooperation.”⁷
  Today, when our foreign policy often deviates from the path of impartiality, our good offices are no longer in demand from a number of countries. Don’t you find it embarrassing when countries such as Turkey or the Gulf states invite to peace negotiations instead of Switzerland? Even for talks between Iran and the USA, whose protecting power mandate Switzerland has held for decades, we are no longer consulted. Even the ICRC, the epitome of a neutral organisation that is firmly linked to Switzerland, has in recent years no longer received the support from Bern that it deserves and on which it relies for its indispensable humanitarian aid.
  Switzerland must regain its good reputation as a place of peace. •

¹ Dispatch by the Federal Council of 27 November 2024 on the popular initiative “Safeguarding Swiss neutrality (neutrality initiative)”, p. 2 (in German); https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/federal-gazette/2024/3136.pdf
² Bericht über die Aussenpolitik der Schweiz in den 90er Jahren. Anhang: Bericht zur Neutralität (Report on Switzerland’s foreign policy in the 1990s. Annex: Report on neutrality) of 29 November 1993. p. 208 and 222
³ see Pierre-Alain Fridez. “Der Entscheid für den F-35. Ein gewaltiger Fehler oder ein staatspolitischer Skandal?” (The decision in favour of the F-35: a huge mistake or a political scandal?”), quoted in “The small neutral state as a ‘grease’ in the geopolitical machine”. In: Current Concerns No. 3 from 11 February 2025
⁴ 24.3012 Motion SPC-N. “Fokussierung auf die verfassungsmässigen Aufgaben der Armee. Keine Teilnahme an Nato-Bündnisfallübungen!” (Focus on the constitutional tasks of the army. No participation in NATO alliance exercises!)
⁵ see “Recalling the value of neutrality”, in: Current Concerns No. 21 from 22 October 2024
⁶ 25.3529 Motion SPC-N. “Verhandlungsmandat für ein Abkommen mit der EU im Bereich Sicherheit und Verteidigung” (Negotiating mandate for an agreement with the EU in the area of security and defense) of 13 May 2025.
⁷ https://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/fdfa/fdfa/aktuell/newsuebersicht/2021/06/gute-dienste.html