Swiss Neutrality Council: Cumulative Erosion of Neutrality

NATO and EU Ties Violate Swiss Core Legal Foundations
Christoph Pfluger, BENE and Neutrality Council; Introduction Peter Koenig, BENE and NC
20 September 2026

The brief summary, below, of Cumulative Erosion of Neutrality was first published as a Press Release in the Swiss media, on or about 11 September 2026.

Introduction

Switzerland’s Neutrality has been eroding for a while, at least in the last decade or two, in the sense that the Swiss Government, both Executive and Legislative – however NOT the Swiss people – have gradually opted to bend to the pressure from Washington and Brussels, to become ever-closer allies of the warrior NATO, and the not so much different European Union (EU). Both of these organizations are acting in violation of the UN Charter, the world’s legal framework that is above all others.

Of course, there is not only foreign pressure behind this tendency, but also Swiss-internal business interests. After all, wars are profitable, in one way or another, and as we watch the world around us, we see it staring right into our face – profit hovers above Peace, above Life, above human consciousness.

Switzerland being still at least nominally a direct Democracy, the Swiss people, a majority of whom want to keep the Swiss legendary neutrality, have launched a couple of years ago, a people’s Initiative to not only keep the Swiss Neutrality alive, but also enshrine it into the Swiss Constitution.

A Quick Look at History:
In 1813, as the Napoleonic wars, in which Switzerland was also involved [no neutrality then], and the Napoleon Reign collapsed, the Swiss federal legislature and executive council, then called the Federal Diet or Tagsatzung – declared Switzerland’s independence and neutrality on 13 November 1813. Swiss leaders then presented neutrality as useful not only for Switzerland, but also for Europe. A neutral Switzerland could serve as a buffer between France, Austria, Italy and the German states.

On 20 March 1815, at the Congress of Vienna, Austria, France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Spain and Sweden, the world powers at the time, declared that Switzerland’s perpetual neutrality was in the general interest of Europe.

On 27 May 1815, the Swiss authorities accepted the conditions attached to the declaration. Switzerland was therefore not simply compelled to become neutral; it consented to a status that it had actively requested.

On 9 June 1815, the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, the neutrality arrangement was incorporated into the wider settlement establishing post-Napoleonic Europe.

On 20 November 1815, the Second Treaty of Paris, the major powers gave a formal and definitive recognition of Switzerland’s “perpetual neutrality” and guaranteed the integrity and inviolability of Swiss territory. This was the decisive international-law recognition.

“Perpetual Neutrality” as conceived during the Congress of Vienna, meant that Switzerland was to remain neutral in future wars between other states. In practical terms, it was expected to:

• refrain from joining military alliances directed toward war;
• avoid participating in wars between other states;
• prevent belligerent armies from crossing Swiss territory;
• defend its own territory if necessary; and
• maintain neutrality impartially rather than favoring one belligerent.

The obligation was therefore not the same as pacifism or disarmament. Switzerland was expected to possess sufficient armed forces to defend its neutrality. Modern Swiss terminology consequently, describes its position as permanent armed neutrality. The legal duties of neutral states were later codified more precisely in the Hague Conventions of 1907, which Switzerland ratified in 1910.

A crucial distinction is that neutrality is not a promise never to use force. A neutral state may use force in self-defense and must normally prevent either side in a war from using its territory.

Thus, the legal basis was not one single constitutional act. It was an international settlement involving Swiss consent and recognition by the European powers.

The Swiss Constitution of 1848 (still valid today) emerged from the transformation of Switzerland from a loose confederation of largely sovereign cantons into a federal state.
However, when establishing the 1848 Constitution, the Swiss government failed to fully incorporate Swiss Neutrality, as described above, into the very Constitution.
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A Swiss Movement for Neutrality, with its acronym in German – BENE (for Bewegung für eine Neutrale Schweiz) was born about 2 years ago with the purpose of promoting and pledging with the public at large to vote Yes, for the Neutrality Initiative at the public ballot on 27 September 2026.

An offspring from BENE is the Neutrality Council (NC), a thinktank on Swiss as well as global Neutrality. If every country in the world would be neutral, there would be no wars. Instead, PEACE might descend on Earth.

The twelve-member NC, comprising figures from international law, diplomacy, academia and the military, calls, among other things, for an end to any further adoption of sanctions, a systematic legal review of future cooperation measures, and a strengthening of Switzerland’s good offices.

The NC issues reports related to international law – and notably in reference to Swiss Neutrality, or rather, how neutrality has been gradually sidelined, by the Swiss Government in favor of an ever-faster move towards NATO and the European Union.
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Cumulative Erosion of Neutrality

The NC’s third and latest report, “Cumulative Erosion of Neutrality” identifies in the sanctions and in growing security-policy cooperation a creeping departure from the foundations of international law and from the constitutional mandate to work for “a peaceful and just international order.”

Switzerland is hollowing out its neutrality in small steps that each appear unproblematic on their own, but whose cumulative effect raises serious constitutional and international-law concerns. That is the conclusion of the Neutrality Council in its latest report. No single breach of the law is decisive, the Council argues, but rather the sum of many steps: EU sanctions, NATO partnership exercises, alignment on security policy, and the planned relaxation of the War Materiel Act. To date, no assessment of their combined effect on permanent armed neutrality has been carried out.

Article 2 of the Federal Constitution obliges the Confederation and Parliament to work for “a peaceful and just international order.” This is compounded by the constitutional duty to respect international law. NATO and EU states, by contrast, have repeatedly obstructed attempts to reach a settlement between Russia and Ukraine, thereby disregarding the duty of peaceful dispute settlement under Article 2(3) of the UN Charter.

The report points to the Minsk agreements concluded ahead of the Russian intervention in Ukraine and to the Istanbul negotiations of 2022. In the Council’s assessment, Western actors played a decisive role in preventing possible peace settlements. A “legally established” violation by NATO states cannot be derived from this, the report notes, since the UN Charter provision primarily binds the parties to a dispute. Nonetheless, it argues, the deliberate and sustained obstruction of peace efforts by NATO and EU states runs counter to the spirit and letter of the Charter.

The Neutrality Council regards this military partnership with organizations that knowingly disregard international law as a violation of the duty to peace enshrined in the Federal Constitution and the UN Charter, and as a further threat to Swiss neutrality.

For neutral Switzerland in particular, the Council considers this finding decisive: its security cannot rest on power politics, but only on respect for international law and on a credible, defensible neutrality. Deeper cooperation with NATO and the EU, it argues, cannot therefore be assessed independently of these partners’ respect for international law.

The NC calls for a course correction: Parliament should assess every significant cooperation measure—including its cumulative effect—against the law of neutrality and the UN Charter. The Federal Council must end the sanctions against Russia and initiate a debate at the UN on developing the law of neutrality in light of cyber and hybrid warfare. The Council recommends that voters approve the neutrality initiative, so that neutrality is anchored in the Constitution in a manner consistent with international law.

The core finding: For a small neutral state, international law is not a side issue. It is a cornerstone of its security.

See also this: https://neutralitaetsrat.ch/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/NR2_security-policy_Missed_Opportunities_EN-8-26.pdf

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst, regular author for Global Research, and a former Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.