mer, Mar 29th 2023
Switzerland will likely provide indirect military aid to Ukraine following a House of Representatives vote this week to decommission Leopard tanks sitting in storage. It is a controversial first for the neutral country.
Switzerland has 96 mothballed Leopard 2 tanks that the country cannot use. Under the recently approved plan, the Swiss Parliament will official declare 25 of them out of service and decommission them back to manufacturer Rheinmetall. The manufacturer will then sell them to Germany who can then release tanks in their military reserves to go to Ukraine.
Switzerland’s security commission this week voted to approve the proposal, with ten votes in favor of it, nine against it and six abstentions.
Switzerland has faced months of criticism for refusing to relax its War Materials Act – a law that prevents Switzerland from sending Swiss-made arms to countries who intend to send them onto warring nations. The War Materials Act is both the cornerstone of Switzerland’s traditional neutrality, and also one of the country’s more controversial laws. (Read more: How Swiss arms came to be at the center of the Russo-Ukrainian war).
Since the summer, Germany’s defense minister Christine Lambrecht has been writing angry letters to her Swiss counterpart Viola Amherd, calling for Switzerland to send 12,000 35mm rounds of Swiss-made ammunition for Germany’s Leopard air defense tanks. Switzerland is one of the only countries that makes the ammunition needed for the tanks.
Denmark has also been requesting Switzerland to allow the exportation of Piranha III wheeled armored vehicles to Ukraine. The Piranha vehicles are Swiss-made. In January, Spain asked Switzerland to allow it to export 35 mm anti-aircraft guns that were also produced in Switzerland. Bern blocked all requests, citing the War Materials Act.
“If we can help Ukraine indirectly in this way, I believe we also have a responsibility here to make our contribution to the security architecture of Europe,” Swiss security commission member Maja Riniker told Swiss public television, SRF.
“Switzerland hasn’t got an up-to-date defense strategy,” Swiss People’s Party (SVP) council member David Zuberbühler said to SWI SwissInfo. “We don’t know what the army of tomorrow will look like. Therefore, the tanks shouldn’t be flogged off abroad.”
The members of the right-wing SVP have been outspoken against Switzerland taking any steps away from a traditional definition of neutrality – including imposing sanctions on Russia and finding loopholes in its War Materials Act.
The security commission wrote dans une déclaration that the sale of the tanks would not change Switzerland’s military reserves whatsoever, and that it was more important to respond to “the security situation in Europe” which “has further deteriorated with Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.”
The proposal must still be approved by Swiss Parliament before the sales process begins, but it is expected to pass.
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