Federal Council gets more leeway for war material exports

Published: Monday, Dec 18th 2023, 20:01

The Federal Council will be given more leeway when approving the export of war material. In future, it will be able to deviate from the previous restrictions on such exports in exceptional cases. This was also decided by the National Council after the Council of States.

Against the opposition of the SP, Greens and GLP, a center-right coalition approved a motion for an amendment to the War Material Act on Monday. A new Article 22b is to be added to this law.

According to this, the Federal Council may in future deviate from the previous licensing criteria for the export of war material abroad in exceptional circumstances. This must also be necessary to safeguard the country's foreign or security policy interests.

Opponents of this amendment say that two years ago, Parliament deleted Article 22b from the Federal Council's counter-proposal to the popular initiative "Against arms exports to countries at civil war". This was a decisive factor in the withdrawal of this petition for a referendum. It is undemocratic to introduce Article 22b after all.

Just minutes after the decision, the group Switzerland Without an Army (GsoA) announced a referendum against the revision of the law. The Greens announced that they would consider a referendum if the Federal Council "submits the undermining of the War Material Act to Parliament in its current form".

Center/EPP for more leeway

The SVP, FDP and the Center/EPP parliamentary groups in the National Council supported the proposed revision, which originated from the Security Policy Committee of the Council of States. Thomas Rechsteiner (Center/AI) said on behalf of his parliamentary group that the environment had changed considerably since the start of Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.

A strong arms industry is important for Switzerland and for customers of this industry abroad. Rechsteiner also said that the provisions in the existing Article 22a of the War Material Act restricted the national government. "This is not a free pass for the Federal Council," said Rechsteiner.

Specifically, the requested Article 22b stipulates that the Federal Council must inform the Security Policy Committees of the Councils of its decision within 24 hours if it decides to deviate from Article 22a by decree. If the deviation from the approval criteria is implemented by ordinance, it must be limited in time.

Maja Riniker (FDP/AG) said on behalf of the majority of the Commission that the licensing criteria for exports set out in Article 22a of the War Material Act remain fully applicable.

"You are not helping Ukraine with this motion," said Priska Seiler Graf (SP/ZH) on behalf of her parliamentary group and on behalf of a minority of the advisory committee. Such an amendment would only confirm the cliché of a Switzerland that wants to profit from conflicts.

The SP is prepared to talk about solutions for the re-export of war material. However, Seiler Graf went on to say that Parliament wanted to create leeway for arms exports to countries "that clearly violate human rights".

Melanie Mettler (GLP/BE) also spoke on behalf of her parliamentary group of a "somewhat brazen" approach and Marionna Schlatter (Greens/ZH) on behalf of her parliamentary group of a "gift to the arms industry".

Feasible for Parmelin in terms of state policy

The initiators themselves had proposed at the time that an exemption article be included in the War Material Act: Guy Parmelin said this to those who described Article 22b as politically sensitive two years after the withdrawal of the corrective initiative.

This exemption article should have allowed Switzerland to export war material to countries involved in a conflict. Parmelin went on to say that this would have been the case if these countries were considered democratic states and if they had export controls similar to those in Switzerland.

In this respect, the Federal Council's counter-proposal, which came into force in May 2022, is stricter than what the corrective initiative initially wanted. From a democratic perspective, it is therefore possible to return to a proposal similar to the original initiative. The National Council approved the motion from the Council of States by 117 votes to 74, with no abstentions.

©Keystone/SDA

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