Thun
\nSwiss voters will decide on Sunday whether to approve a more restrictive form of neutrality that would block their \u200bcountry from imposing economic sanctions or cooperating with NATO.
\nThe country is holding a referendum on whether a strictly defined version of neutrality should be written into its constitution.
\nWhile Swiss neutrality has been internationally recognised since the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, how the government implements it is not spelled out.
\nThe right-wing Swiss People\u2019s Party (SVP) has said that Switzerland\u2019s traditional position has been eroded after Bern imposed sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
\nThe campaign has funded posters across the country urging people to vote \u201cNo war, yes to neutrality\u201d, featuring white peace doves ahead of the vote.
\nStill, opinion polls suggest voters will reject the proposal, with one of the latest surveys showing 68% against with 31% in favour.
\nFabio Wasserfallen, a professor of European Politics at the University of Bern, said: \u201cSwiss voters like neutrality, but they approve of how the government is implementing it at present. \u201cThey are also generally in favour of the sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine, and don\u2019t want that to change.\u201d
\nThe campaign wants the constitution to stipulate that Switzerland cannot join or cooperate with any military or defence alliance unless attacked, and that it refrain from joining any sanctions unless approved by the United Nations.
\nIt says Swiss neutrality has served the country well in the past, keeping it out of both world wars, and also helps Bern offer its \u2018good offices\u2019 to help negotiate peace between warring parties.
\n\u201cSwitzerland has not had a war for 200 years because it is permanently armed and neutral,\u201d said Christoph Blocher, the billionaire businessman and backer of the SVP.
\n\u201cBut neutrality has been followed less and less in recent years,\u201d he told Reuters, with Russia now seeing Switzerland as a party to the conflict because of the sanctions.
\nApart from the \u200bSVP, most parties and the Swiss government oppose the proposal, with Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis saying it would harm national security and prevent it from training with NATO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thun Swiss voters will decide on Sunday whether to approve a more restrictive form of neutrality that would block their \u200bcountry from imposing economic sanctions or cooperating with NATO. The country is holding a referendum on whether a strictly defined version of neutrality should be written into its constitution. While Swiss neutrality has been internationally …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103549"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103574,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103549\/revisions\/103574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}