> newfound love for a weirdly biased neutrality
Switzerland has always been aggressively neutral to the extent of annoying the rest of Europe, not just during WW2 but all the way back to the Hundred Years War.
Switzerland has always been aggressively neutral to the extent of annoying the rest of Europe, not just during WW2 but all the way back to the Hundred Years War.
No, I don't buy it. This time around they went to the extent of refusing to sell ammo for their own weapons arguing they'd be used in a war.
They are outright destroying their arms industry by arguing that they cannot even be used by their owners to defend themselves.
This goes way deeper than this neutrality scapegoate.
Well, we can read it up. The "hundred years war" date is of course wrong, they have neutrality since 1814/1815. If you cannot read german, use google-translate or DeepL: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutralit%C3%A4t_der_Schweiz
> This time around they went to the extent of refusing to sell ammo for their own weapons arguing they'd be used in a war.
Well, even Germany did this before 24st February 2022, and it never was neutral.
In the case of Switzerland, the neutrality is in their constitution. Neither the government nor the parliament can change it. It needs a public vote of the ca. 6 million people large electorate. Germany had it much easier, the "don't export to crisis regions" wasn't in constitution. And, truth be told, it was never followed through 100% (e.g. why would one export military ships to Saudi-Arabia, which is in war with Yemen?).
> They are outright destroying their arms industry
Yes, they do it. For me, this sounds that they like their neutrality more than money --- however, people usually assume more sinister motives. Like that Switzerland is somehow getting black money from russian Oligarchs.
To me, this sounds entirely implausible --- or if it happens, than in a similar scale as in EU countries. First, as said, the neutrality is in the hands of the electorate. Russian Oligarchs cannot smear 6 million people. Second, it is well known that Switzerland implemented all 9 sanction packets of the EU. They even seized russian assets, about 8 billion EUR. That is more than can be said of some EU countries!
So, if they still do business with Oligarchs, then only because these Oligarchs aren't in one of the 9 lists of sanctioned entities the EU created. In that case, we should blame both Switzerland and the EU.
Apropos "swiss liking neutrality": i read that in May 2022 there was a representative poll. It turned out that 85% of the swiss liked the neutrality and don't want it to change.
As we leave the post-Cold War era into a more uncertain and conflict prone[1] future, it's entirely unsurprising they'd retreat. Or perhaps another way of looking at it is that it's been awhile since Swiss neutrality was truly tested, and perhaps people had assumed more of a change than there really was.
[1] As between major powers and also, at least regarding immigration and trade, within the West. Conflict never really dissipated much across the rest of the world.
Switzerland - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland founded 1291