Switzerland has become a target of Russian influence in recent weeks. On the RT (Russia Today) platform, which, unlike in the EU, is not banned in Switzerland, numerous articles have recently appeared in favor of the popular initiative to “preserve Swiss neutrality”, which the Swiss are voting on this Sunday. The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, publicly spoke out in favor of the initiative, which was launched by circles of the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party (SVP), by far the party with the largest number of voters in the Swiss Confederation.
The initiative calls for a much stricter interpretation of neutrality. Accordingly, Switzerland should neither join nor cooperate with a military alliance as long as it is not attacked. In addition, it should no longer be allowed to impose sanctions against belligerent states unless these are decided by the UN, which, however, hardly ever happens because of the veto rights in the Security Council.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Swiss government initially hesitated and then decided to join the EU sanctions against Russia. Critics call the initiative a “pro-Putin initiative” because the Kremlin would be the first beneficiary if the initiative found a majority.
The driver and main financier of the initiative is the billionaire and former Swiss Minister of Justice Christoph Blocher. The 85-year-old doyen of the SVP has invested 3.9 million francs in the voting campaign, which is also fishing for votes in the left-wing pacifist camp with the slogan “No War” and a peace dove. Blocher sees Switzerland in danger because of the adoption of Russia's sanctions: By violating its neutrality towards the nuclear power Russia, it has become a "warring party". Only if Switzerland remains absolutely neutral will it be protected from a potential attack, argues Blocher. Thanks to neutrality, people were spared in the two world wars of the last century. Cooperation with NATO could be avoided; Switzerland is able to defend itself alone.
The Swiss government and all other parties in parliament reject the neutrality initiative because it unnecessarily and drastically restricts Switzerland's ability to act in foreign and security policy. Sanctions are an important instrument for responding to violations of international law and threats to the international order. Opponents argue that Switzerland, as a small state, benefits particularly from this order. One should not become a safe haven for war profiteers.
The Swiss historian Sacha Zala believes that the claim that Switzerland has become a warring party is false. “If you bring neutrality back to the core of international law, i.e. the Hague Convention of 1907, then it only says that the neutral does not take part in wars and is not allowed to make its territory available to belligerent powers,” says Zala. Sanctions did not even appear in Hague law.
Zala warns of the consequences of accepting the initiative: "In contrast to its self-perception as a cute little Heidi Alpine republic, Switzerland is at least a larger middle power economically. It is naive to assume that our partners in the West accept disadvantages just because we philosophize about our neutrality policy." Swiss neutrality is perceived abroad as an instrument that primarily serves to do business undisturbed.
In this context, it is striking that the auto supplier Ems-Chemie, controlled and managed by Blocher's daughter, the SVP politician Magdalena Martullo-Blocher, appears to be continuing to do business in Russia, while many other Western companies, including important buyers such as VW, Mercedes and Renault, have withdrawn from this market since the beginning of the war or were driven out by coercive measures by the Kremlin. The Swiss online magazine “Republik” has collected a lot of information that suggests that Ems-Chemie has indirectly supplied companies that are part of Putin’s war economy in recent years.
In the 1980s, Ems-Chemie, then run by Christoph Blocher himself, also benefited from business in sanctioned South Africa. At that time, Blocher founded the “Southern Africa Working Group”, which defended the apartheid regime politically and in the media and categorically rejected international sanctions. Fabian Molina, foreign policy spokesman for the Swiss Social Democrats, sees a parallel to the neutrality initiative in the approach taken at the time: then as now, “the interest in unlimited enrichment with criminal despots is at the center”.
According to historian Zala, neutrality will only last as long as it is respected abroad. The fact that it does not automatically protect against an attack was seen in the Second World War: “Hitler attacked neutral states such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark and Norway.”
The historian Marco Jorio, who wrote a standard work on the four hundred year history of Swiss neutrality, also does not consider neutrality to be an effective protective shield. "Imperialists don't care about the credibility of our neutrality. They just want to achieve their geostrategic and operational goals," Jorio told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The neutrality initiative is driving Switzerland into isolation. “It strives for isolation, as if the world outside doesn’t concern us.” Switzerland cannot face today's threats alone, said Jorio, referring to the ban demanded by the initiators from cooperating with a defense alliance such as NATO in peacetime.
Thomas Süssli, head of the Swiss Army until the end of 2025, took the same line: NATO is not a fire department that you call in the event of a fire and then simply comes, he said. Armies would have to coordinate their systems and practice cooperation. Süssli described the assumption that Switzerland, which does not have any significant air defense itself, would be able to defend itself in an emergency on its own as absurd.
Jorio believes it is wrong that the Swiss government is still basing its neutrality law on the Hague Convention of 1907. At that time, war was not yet outlawed as a political instrument. The requirement contained in the Hague Convention to treat aggressors and victims equally in a war is therefore long outdated. The resulting practice of denying Ukraine weapons automatically helps the Russian attacker. “This is anything but neutral and unethical to boot,” said Jorio. According to the latest polls, the majority of voters surveyed reject the neutrality initiative.
