Swiss neutrality is more important than ever, President Alain Berset said in an interview published Sunday, defending the controversial ban on transferring Swiss-made arms to Ukraine.
”Swiss weapons must not be used in wars,” he told the NZZ am Sonntag weekly.
The long tradition of neutrality has been hotly debated since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While the wealthy Alpine country, which is not a member of the European Union, has followed the bloc’s lead on sanctions targeting Moscow, it has so far shown less flexibility on its military neutrality. Despite pressure from Kyiv and its allies, Switzerland has continued to block countries that hold Swiss-made weaponry from re-exporting it to Ukraine.
To date, requests from Germany, Spain and Denmark have been rejected under the War Materiel Act, which bars all re-export if the recipient country is in an international armed conflict. Läs artikel