Federal Council wants to classify Hamas as a terrorist organisation

Claire Micallef

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Hamas should be classified as a terrorist organisation in Switzerland. The Federal Council has instructed the Middle East Task Force to look into the legal possibilities for such a ban. The decision was welcomed by Israel's ambassador to Switzerland, interviewed by RTS.

On Wednesday, the Federal Council once again condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the terrorist acts carried out by Hamas against civilians in Israel and demands the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas fighters and an immediate end to the violence.

The Swiss government recalls that the civilian population must be protected and that international humanitarian law must be respected at all times.

To ensure a well-coordinated approach, the Federal Council has expanded the Middle East Task Force set up by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). The Departments of the Interior, Defence and Justice as well as the Federal Chancellery will also be represented in it.

The FDFA wants to ensure that Swiss funding of NGOs in the Middle East does not benefit Hamas. This is currently not the case.

Furthermore, Switzerland is offering its services to work towards de-escalation.

Interviewed on RTS 19h30, Israel's ambassador to Switzerland Ifat Reshef "welcomes" the Federal Council's decision.

"The human toll in Israel is unbearable, unimaginable. Many of our friends and partners around the world now understand the true nature of Hamas, which is similar to the Islamic State or al-Qaeda", she says.

Ifat Reshef believes that this is not the right time to talk with Hamas. "We are still counting the dead. Rather, the time has come to pursue Hamas leaders and militants, neutralise their military capabilities and ensure that such terrible pogroms are not repeated in Israel or elsewhere. The discussions will take place later."

The Federal Council is thus following the position expressed on Tuesday by the National Council's Security Policy Committee, which unanimously called for a ban on Hamas. In the past, such a proposal had been rejected by parliament.

The Islamic State and al-Qaeda, as well as related organisations, are among the groups banned in Switzerland.

Last Monday, Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis raised the possibility of a similar procedure against Hamas as the one carried out against al-Qaeda, provided that were legally possible.

States classifying Hamas as a terrorist organisation include the European Union, the US and Canada.

Switzerland's classification of Hamas

UN badly weakened - and "the world out of control"

The UN General Debate took place in New York in mid-September. Secretary-General António Guterres expresses deep concern.

Matthias Hug

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The report on the state of the world by UN Secretary-General António Guterres has almost apocalyptic features at times. For example, when he describes a world out of control. The governments of the 193 UN member states, but the world organisation itself as well, are unable to find solutions, says Guterres and adds that the rifts between East and West and North and South are deepening.

He is meanwhile without illusions, Guterres said. Compromise, he said, had become a dirty word. There are more and more conflicts, chaos and military coups, democracy is in danger worldwide and dictatorships are on the rise, Guterres said. With regard to climate, hunger and many other issues, development is going in the wrong direction.

And although, after Guterres, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaks of faith in humanity, this seems less descriptive than evocative.

US President Joe Biden is also trying to spread optimism. Just back from a visit to Vietnam, he stresses that enemies can become partners. While he has harsh words for Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine, he is committed to cooperation with China.

But does Beijing want the same? President Xi Jinping stays away from the UN General Debate. And while Biden is speaking, not China's vice president, no minister, not even the ambassador are seated in the great hall of the General Assembly. Only two young Chinese diplomats are listening. Symbolism is important in world politics.

Biden is reaching out to the countries of the South in particular. With commitments to reform the UN Security Council and UN financial institutions, he addresses old demands from emerging and developing countries. This is urgently needed, especially as many states of the Global South are increasingly moving into China's orbit.

The US president concludes with emphasis that the current challenges the UN and the world are facing are enormous, but they must and will be met. Many in the room, however, will be asking themselves how long this president, who is open to international cooperation, will continue to govern the superpower USA.

Richard Gowan, a long-time UN expert at the think tank International Crisis Group, is sceptical about the situation and role of the UN: it functions well when the major powers cooperate, but at present, things look bad in that regard. It is difficult to have confidence in the UN's ability to act when the most influential countries with vetoes in the Security Council are deeply divided.

The result: the UN is primarily a place of bickering, and the organisation is paralysed in some areas. Where it still functions, for example in humanitarian aid, it lacks money.

Almost defiantly, therefore, Secretary-General Guterres said he was not giving up. After all, it is a fight for survival. The UN, he said, was created precisely for difficult and dangerous times like today. But whether it is up to the challenges is completely open at the moment.

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"The world out of control"

‘When the rocket alarm goes off, we go into the stairwell, as far away from the glass as possible’

Monique Heymann is one of the almost 23,000 Swiss citizens in Israel and is involved in the Council of the Swiss Abroad. In an interview with SWI swissinfo.ch, she tells us how she experienced the last few turbulent days and that the only thing you can do from afar is get in touch and take an interest.

SWI swissinfo.ch: Since Saturday morning, the Islamist group Hamas has fired thousands of rockets at Israel. At the same time, Hamas fighters from Gaza have entered Israel, massacring and kidnapping civilians. How have you experienced the days since this war began?

Monique Heymann: I live in Jaffa, the Arab part of Tel Aviv.

On Saturday morning, I was woken up at half past six by the rocket alarm. It is not pleasant to wake up like that, but we already know what to do then. From the time the alarm goes off, we have one and a half minutes to get into a bunker.

But there is no such shelter in the old building where we live. We go into the stairwell, crouching as far away from glass as possible. The stairwell is the most stable part of a building.

When the Iron Dome shield intercepts the missile, you hear a boom. Then you are supposed to wait another ten minutes. Saturday morning we experienced a few alarms, then three more in the evening. Since then it has been quieter. Just now I heard another missile alarm, but not directly in our neighbourhood.

SWI: Nevertheless, you are working this Monday.

M.H: Exactly. The international high-tech company where I work supports us a lot in this situation. We can work when we can. My colleagues in Israel are mostly on-off at the moment because many of them have to look after children at the same time. Friends of a colleague are missing.

Many of my colleagues had to join the army as reservists. Working is good for me. It distracts me and otherwise I would be constantly scrolling around and be exposed to the pictures in the news and social media.

SWI: In the Middle East conflict, every time it escalates internationally, many people reflexively take sides as if it were a football match. What do you say to those in the social media who appear to know everything better from afar?

M.H: I don't comment on such things. I get personally annoyed when I see something.

SWI: Almost 23,000 people with Swiss citizenship live in Israel. Do you hear of many who are now looking for ways to leave the country?

M.H: I haven't heard of anyone who lives here and is thinking of leaving. But my colleague in the Council of the Swiss Abroad seems to have received a lot of calls. For me, going back would not be an option either.

Like most Swiss people in Israel, I am a dual citizen. In 2014 I immigrated with the help of Aliyah, the Israeli state service that supports all Jewish people to move to Israel and obtain citizenship. So I'm not thinking about returning to Switzerland, but I also see myself as Swiss, as a Swiss Abroad. That's why I'm also involved in this community.

SWI: How do you assess the behaviour of the Swiss authorities towards the citizens in Israel in recent days?

M.H: On Saturday evening, we received a helpful email from the embassy informing us how to register on the TravelAdmin app. But of course this was addressed to Swiss citizens living here - not to those who are here on holiday.

For tourists, it was probably more challenging. I heard from one corner that some people didn't know how to get in touch with the embassy. Of course, it is important that everyone who wants to go home can be flown out. I find it very difficult.

At the moment, it seems to be open whether there will still be emergency flights from Switzerland. However, I am hardly involved in this, but try to be there for Swiss people who live here if they have a problem.

SWI: What political measures should Switzerland take now?

Switzerland absolutely must recognise Hamas as a terrorist organisation. I read in the media that the parliamentary "Switzerland-Palestine Friendship Group" is about to come to an end. I think that's good.  

A criticism I have is that until Monday afternoon no one from the Federal Council had yet clearly condemned the Hamas attack. Maybe that's not possible because of neutrality, but I find that questionable.

SWI: What do you say to your friends and acquaintances in Switzerland and elsewhere who are looking for ways to help?

M.H: Coming forward is the only thing you can do. You can write to us and think of us. In Israel we support each other mentally. But I also get a lot of messages from Switzerland and a lot of people get in touch with my parents who live in Switzerland. That is also good for my parents. The sympathy is very great.

"We support each other mentally"

Conflicts: Should Switzerland do more?

Switzerland as a mediator – the successes and failures

Switzerland has often mediated in international conflicts. In some cases it has made a decisive contribution to making peace, and that is the basis of its reputation for “good offices”. Today, however, Switzerland is only one actor among many.

In 1714 the War of the Spanish Succession ended with an accord signed in the small Swiss town of Baden. This followed two previous treaties concluded in Utrecht and Rastatt. Why did the two parties – France and the Holy Roman Empire – choose this little town as the venue for negotiations? In part because it was located on neutral territory, but also because Baden, a spa town, had the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the more than 300 delegates who spent the entire summer there, enjoying sumptuous banquets between negotiating rounds.

The outcome of the talks was rather modest: the treaty signed on September 7 was essentially limited to a confirmation of the Rastatt peace agreement. But the Swiss government fondly remembered the diplomatic episode as the beginning of a tradition of good offices, even though this would not take on its modern shape until a century-and-a-half after the founding of the federal state in 1848.

In Baden, the Swiss Confederacy served less as a mediator than as the stage for a play directed by the great monarchical powers. It was not until the second half of the 19th century, as international cooperation intensified due to technical developments, that the conditions for a modern policy of providing good offices were met.

Switzerland became the seat of international organisations such as the International Telegraph Union (1865) and the Universal Postal Union (1874). In 1872 an international arbitration court based in Geneva ordered the United Kingdom to pay a fine to the United States for supplying warships to the southern states during the War of Secession.

In the so-called Alabama Claims, Switzerland appeared for the first time in its modern mediator role and helped to find a legal resolution to the conflict between the two states. In the years that followed, Switzerland played a leading role in the debates on international arbitration that led to the Hague Conventions, which proved critical to international relations.

The First World War put an abrupt end to conflict resolution through arbitration. In the interwar period Bern participated in difficult mediation mandates on behalf of the League of Nations, for example in Upper Silesia and the Free City of Danzig.

Important peace conferences were also organised in Switzerland, such as the Locarno Conference (1925), which was intended to defuse the post-war conflicts between the European powers. In Lausanne (1923) and Montreux (1936), agreements were reached on the borders of present-day Turkey and navigation on the Black Sea.

But the Second World War reshuffled the deck. In the immediate post-1945 period the victorious powers distrusted Switzerland because of its economic relations with Nazi Germany. In addition, Switzerland was not a member of the United Nations. Instead, it observed efforts to establish the new international order from the sidelines.

But the UN seat in Geneva, partly due to the work of the new foreign minister, Max Petitpierre, meant that Switzerland was able to become more involved again. The government elected in 1944 strove to combine Swiss neutrality with a more active international presence.

In 1953 almost 100 Swiss army personnel and diplomats were sent as neutral observers to South Korea to monitor the ceasefire on the demarcation line. The deployment, which began in the summer in Panmunjom on the demarcation line at the 38th parallel, was Switzerland’s first involvement in the field of military peacebuilding abroad.

In 1954 Switzerland also hosted the Indochina Conference and in 1955 the first summit meeting between the victorious powers of the Second World War.

But the operation that undoubtedly contributed most to Switzerland’s reputation for good offices was its role as mediator in the final phase of the Algerian War.

At the instigation of the provisional government of the Algerian Republic and with the approval of France, Bern opened channels of communication between the warring parties in 1960. Later it participated in the ceasefire negotiations in Algeria that concluded with the Evian Accords. The Algerian envoys stayed in Switzerland during the negotiations and part of the talks with France took place on Swiss soil.

The success of Evian became a kind of myth relating to Switzerland’s good offices. But this was followed by a series of failures in mediation attempts in Afghanistan, apartheid South Africa and the Falklands War between Britain and Argentina. On the other hand, a summit meeting between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev took place in Geneva in 1985.

The Geneva summit was an early sign of a thaw. The end of the Cold War ushered in a new phase in international relations, characterised by an increasingly important role for multilateral organisations in good offices.

At the same time, in the 1990s relations with the European Union became more complicated and an international debate on Switzerland’s role in the Second World War erupted. Switzerland had to reorient itself.

Bern again tried to gain room for manoeuvre through a more active foreign policy, but this time within the framework of multilateral cooperation. Swiss diplomacy then achieved some important successes in the new millennium, such as a 2002 ceasefire agreement in the conflict in the Nuba Mountains in Sudan, signed on the Bürgenstock hill overlooking Lucerne. In 2009, thanks to Swiss mediation, Turkey and Armenia signed the Zurich Protocols aimed at normalising diplomatic relations between the two countries. However, these agreements have had little effect to date. 

Other Swiss peace initiatives in the 2000s – also with mixed results – concerned the conflicts in Nepal, Burundi, Colombia and Cyprus. Swiss efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict also failed to have a lasting effect.

In 2019, after years of negotiations in Mozambique, a peace agreement was reached between the government and the rebels in Mozambique.

Still, Swiss diplomats’ extensive mediation efforts should not lead to an overestimation of Switzerland’s role in peacebuilding.

Today, international bodies such as the United Nations are more decisive for conflict resolution. Switzerland is one actor among many, with a multilingual and well-prepared diplomatic service and comprehensive know-how. But it often suffers from its international isolation: today, even more than in the past, good offices cannot compensate for solid alliances.

Edited by David Eugster. Translated from German by Catherine Hickley

A reputation for "good offices”

The Middle East conflict has been going on for over 70 years

The region has not been at peace for decades - ever since Israel was founded after World War II. A chronology.

Since the founding of the state of Israel more than 70 years ago, there have been repeated armed conflicts with its neighbours. The first Middle East war was a war of independence for Israel - for the Palestinians, however, it was the beginning of the "Nakba" (catastrophe), their flight and eviction.

November 29, 1947: The United Nations General Assembly calls for the division of the British Mandate territory of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state (Resolution 181). The Jews agree, the Arabs in Palestine and the Arab states reject the plan.

May 14, 1948: David Ben Gurion reads Israel's Declaration of Independence in Tel Aviv. The following day, its Arab neighbours Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria declare war. In the struggle, the new state is able to expand its territory and conquer the western part of Jerusalem. Around 700,000 Palestinians flee.

October 1956: In the Suez Crisis, Israeli troops fight alongside France and Britain for control of the Suez Canal, which Egypt had previously nationalised.

June 1967: In the Six-Day War, Israel conquers the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

October 1973: An alliance of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria attacks Israel on Yom Kippur, the highest Jewish holiday. Israel manages to repel the attack, but suffers severe losses.

March 1979: Israel's head of government Menachem Begin and Egypt's President Anwar al-Sadat conclude a peace treaty brokered by the USA.

June 1982: Operation "Peace for the Galilee" begins. Israel attacks positions of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Lebanon and invades the neighbouring country.

September 1982: Christian Lebanese militiamen carry out the Sabra and Shatila massacre in a Palestinian refugee camp - within sight of Israeli checkpoints. Israel's Defence Minister Ariel Sharon is accused of political complicity.

December 1987: Outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising ("Intifada").

September 1993: Israel's Prime Minister Izchak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign the Oslo Peace Accords.

November 4, 1995: Rabin is shot dead by a Jewish fanatic after a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

September 2000: After a visit by Israel's then opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the second Intifada breaks out.

2002: Israel begins the construction of a 750-kilometre-long barrier around the West Bank. Fences and walls run partly on Palestinian territory.

August 2005: Against the resistance of the settlers, Israel clears all settlements in the Gaza Strip and withdraws its troops from the Palestinian territory by the Mediterranean Sea.

July 2006: Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia engage in a one-month war.

June 2007: The radical Islamic Hamas expels Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah from the Gaza Strip in a bloody power struggle among Palestinians.

Around the end of 2008/the beginning of 2009 until August 2014: The Israeli military and Hamas fight each other in three conflicts in the Gaza Strip. Shortly before the war in 2014, the last attempt to date by Israel and the Palestinian leadership of Abbas to agree on peace at the negotiating table fails.

December 2017: US President Donald Trump announces the relocation of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The decision is met with fierce international criticism.

Spring 2018: At the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, week-long demonstrations by Palestinians for the right to return to the territory of present-day Israel begin. More than a hundred protesters are shot dead by the army. The US opens its embassy in Jerusalem.

January 2020: Trump and Israeli head of government Benjamin Netanyahu present a Middle East peace plan. The Palestinians see international law violated and reject it.

May 2021: Heavy clashes break out between Israeli security forces and Palestinians in Jerusalem. Numerous rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel, which responds with massive air strikes. The fighting continues for eleven days, killing at least 250 people in the Gaza Strip and 13 in Israel.

August 2022: A high-ranking commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is killed in an Israeli air strike. In the following three days of fighting, at least 44 people are killed, including 15 children.

January 2023: The Islamic Jihad organisation in the Palestinian territories fires two rockets at Israel after Israeli troops attack a refugee camp, killing seven armed Palestinians and two civilians. The rockets raise alarm in Israeli communities near the border but cause no casualties. Israel responds with air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

October 7, 2023: Hamas launches the largest attack on Israel in years with a surprise offensive. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks of war. The Israeli military flies air strikes on the Gaza Strip. According to media reports, at least 40 people in Israel have been killed in the fighting within a few hours. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 160 people have been killed in the Palestinian territories. Hundreds were also injured.

Over 70 years of sorrow and frustration

Micheline Calmy-Rey: "A two-state solution is a utopia"

Almost 20 years after the signing of the Geneva Initiative, which proposed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is there still hope for peace? According to Micheline Calmy-Rey, former head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, "we must never despair", but "the two-state solution is a utopia".

In 2003, the Geneva Initiative proposed concrete solutions to all the problems that could arise in implementing a two-state solution, said Micheline Calmy-Rey, then Federal Councillor, on Tuesday's La Matinale on RTS. "Today, we always hear about the two-state solution, but we see that it cannot be implemented on site."

"You only have to look at the map to see that the Palestinian territory is an Emmental. It's not possible to make a state out of it. The two-state solution is a utopia today. We have to work on other solutions, such as a confederation of a single state with equal rights for everyone, and not fall into the trap of an apartheid state", said Micheline Calmy-Rey.

"We managed the situation thinking that the status quo would eventually work. But believing that things will work themselves out is not an option. This neglect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taught us a lesson. It provoked a certain radicalism on both sides, and suddenly, there was this explosion of violence."

The former President of the Swiss Confederation condemns the attacks conducted by Hamas on civilians as "unacceptable". "But I can see that military operations are affecting civilians on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, and the already difficult humanitarian situation in Gaza will get even worse."

"Repression and terrorist attacks will not get us out of this spiral of violence. The only way out is through dialogue".

But we have to find other ways and make a real commitment, she says. "One of the aims of these Palestinian attacks was to prevent the normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which left the Palestinian question somewhat on the sidelines. Moreover, the Palestine question has only been marginally addressed on the European and American agendas in recent years", Micheline Calmy-Rey added.

Now the different parties have to talk to each other, and Switzerland has a role to play. "Switzerland has always spoken to the Hamas, which is not on the UN list of terrorist organisations, like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. If you want to reach an agreement, if you want to find a solution to the current situation, it is not through the military, but through dialogue", the former Federal Councillor repeated. "The parties involved must take part in the discussions. What has happened between Saudi Arabia and Israel is that the Palestinians have been left on the sidelines. To want to make peace without them is to expose yourself to failure".

In her opinion, Switzerland can make its contribution by focusing on dialogue. "We must never lose hope that dialogue can be achieved," concluded Micheline Calmy-Rey. The former Federal Councillor was not heard. On Wednesday, the government decided that Hamas should be classified as a terrorist organisation. It instructed the Middle East Task Force to look into the legal options for banning the Palestinian organisation.

>> The Geneva Initiative, a peace project promoting the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel:

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"A two-state solution is a utopia"

Find out where you stand

NATO, neutrality, army: What Switzerland thinks about security

In face of the war in Ukraine, more Swiss can imagine a rapprochement with NATO. Despite war and crises, Switzerland is more optimistic about the future. An overview of the most important points of the ETH security study.

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War in Ukraine drives Swiss closer to NATO: the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine increases the willingness of the Swiss to cooperate. This is the conclusion of this year's "Security 2023" study conducted in January by the Military Academy (Milak) and the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich. A majority of 55% of those surveyed are in favour of a rapprochement with NATO. This is ten percentage points more than in January 2021. A slim majority thinks that neutrality allows this.

This is typical as soon as a crisis occurs in Switzerland's immediate environment, says co-author Tibor Szvircsev Tresch of Milak: "It correlates with the fact that people have somewhat lost faith in their own ability to defend themselves, which is naturally linked to neutrality." However, only one third of the respondents want Switzerland to join NATO.

Neutrality is viewed more critically, but remains broadly supported: At 91%, support for neutrality was lower by six percentage points than in the previous year's survey. A narrow majority continued to support differential neutrality, according to which Switzerland takes a clear position in political conflicts but remains neutral in military conflicts. Meanwhile, the need for a clear position even on wars has grown from 18% in January 2021 to the current 27% of the participants in the survey. The assessment of neutrality as a protective factor fell significantly from 69% to 55%, compared to the previous year.

Future prospects dim somewhat: 81% of the voters surveyed predicted a positive future for Switzerland in January 2023, which was five percentage points less than in January 2022 before the outbreak of the war. Confidence about the world fell by seven percentage points in comparison to the previous year. Only 24% were still optimistic about the global future.

It is interesting, however, that the Swiss feel better today than they did in earlier years. Particularly during the years 2014 to 2016, the safety reports showed some surprising things from today's perspective. While 94% of the respondents felt generally safe recently, in 2016, 86% shared this opinion. Looking into the future is also less frightening today than it was in the past: in 2016, 75% were optimistic, in the last survey, this number was up to 81%. This may seem surprising considering that a war is taking place some 2,000 kilometres away from Switzerland and that a pandemic with far-reaching consequences recently shook Switzerland and Europe. By comparison, in the years 2014 to 2017, Europe suffered, among other things, from the euro and refugee crises.

When looking even further back into the past, another comparison with today is surprising: the attitude towards life is still better today than it was after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the 2002 Security Report, 86% of the respondents said they felt "very safe" or "rather safe".

What Switzerland thinks about security

Pascale Baeriswyl: "Switzerland is trying to defend international humanitarian law and the rule of law"

Switzerland has been a temporary member of the UN Security Council since the beginning of the year. Pascale Baeriswyl, our representative in New York, was invited to La Matinale in April and talked about this role in a world where "conflicts and crises are increasing".

Conflict in Sudan, war in Ukraine, tensions in the Middle East.... In recent years, violence and crises have followed each other all over the world. But what can the UN Security Council do to prevent this?

The diplomat from Basel concedes that the Security Council "cannot make peace on its own", but that it remains "an extremely important player" on the world stage.

The opening of humanitarian aid passages in north-eastern Syria, peace missions in South Sudan and Colombia, the start of a dialogue in the Middle East or messages of de-escalation in the north-west of the Democratic Republic of Congo: according to Pascale Baeriswyl, the Council has achieved results, with resolutions frequently voted through, even if efforts still need to be made to prevent these situations.

For a country like ours (...) it's important that this world, that these rules are maintained, because for us, this is really an existential question.

"Regarding the Security Council, there are definitely positive aspects, but I would say that on the major global issues, we still see crises and conflicts increasing," she says.

For Pascale Baeriswyl, who began her career in the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs under Joseph Deiss, Switzerland is also well positioned within the UN institution. A place that would enable the country to defend strong principles that serve its interests.

"Switzerland tries to defend international humanitarian law and the rule of law in the Security Council. For a medium-sized country like ours, with an export-oriented economy, it's important that this world and these rules are maintained. Because for us, this is really an existential question", she explains.

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At Security Council meetings, the Swiss ambassador in New York also has to deal with the presence of what might be considered a troublesome neighbour, the representative of the Russian Federation.

Asked about this, Pascale Baeriswyl explains that she continues to maintain a respectful relationship, which is essential in diplomacy. "I believe in distinguishing between people and national positions. It is important to maintain dialogue with people, to have a respectful relationship, which is what I try to do. I wouldn't say we have a cordial relationship, but a respectful one, yes", she explains.

In Europe, we are much closer to the conflict in Ukraine than in New York. Here, we manage all the conflicts of the world

According to the diplomat, the question about neutrality, much debated in Switzerland and Europe, is not often on the agenda of meetings in New York.

"Neutrality is not something we discuss on a daily basis in the Security Council, because it's already so integrated into our positions under international law, which are known and respected. This is also nothing new for the Russians, as we have always condemned violations of international humanitarian law", she says.

So why does Europe seem to be less understanding on this point, particularly when it comes to refusing to re-export military equipment? For the ambassador, the reason is undoubtedly primarily geographical. "In Europe, we are much closer to the conflict in Ukraine than in New York. Here, we manage all the conflicts of the world", she adds.

While Pascale Baeriswyl concedes that Russian aggression is "the most massive violation of the UN Charter", she repeats that Switzerland's neutrality is not the centre of attention of the international community on this issue, as the countries seek above all to know how to manage these geopolitical tensions.

Switzerland in the UN Security Council

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