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Diplomacy Watch: Switzerland weighs break with policy of neutrality

Diplomacy Watch: Switzerland weighs break with policy of neutrality

A group of lawmakers in Bern wants to allow states to re-export Swiss weapons to support the fight in Ukraine.

Europe

A group of Swiss lawmakers has moved forward a proposal to allow countries to give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine, in a move that would soften Switzerland’s centuries-old policy of neutrality toward foreign conflicts.

“The majority of the committee believes Switzerland must offer its contribution to European security, which requires more substantial aid to Ukraine,” the Swiss parliamentary security committee said in a statement.

The decision would represent a significant break from the policy of Swiss neutrality, though its supporters insist that the measure would not violate their law of neutrality since Bern would not be sending weapons directly.

Switzerland’s neutrality has held strong since at least 1815, when Bern helped other European powers defeat Napoleon Bonaparte for the second and final time. Since then, the country has managed to avoid direct participation in any foreign conflict. Even during World War II, Bern studiously avoided taking sides in order to avoid being drawn into the war.

But the war in Ukraine has tested this policy. In May of last year, Swiss authorities agreed under pressure from the West to freeze the assets of several hundred sanctioned Russians, including President Vladimir Putin. Bern also closed its airspace to Russian planes.

Despite these shifts, allowing Swiss weapons to see the battlefield has so far been a red line. Last year, Switzerland denied several requests from Germany and Denmark to re-export Swiss-made arms to Ukraine. The country is currently considering a similar request from Spain, but leaders in Bern have signaled that Madrid’s petition is unlikely to be approved.

If passed, the proposal would create an exception whereby Swiss weapons could be re-exported to an active war zone as long as they are used to fight “a violation of the international ban on the use of force.”

In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:

— Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited South Africa Monday as the two countries prepare for joint military exercises, according to the Associated Press. The trip gave Moscow a chance to reinvigorate ties with South Africa, a key Russian partner in “a continent that is divided over the invasion of [Ukraine] and related Western isolation attempts,” argued Eleonora Tafuro, a senior research fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies. “[Russian] narratives [about] Western double standards & [patronizing] attitudes resonate well in Africa and speak to the history of the USSR helping anti-colonial movements,” Tafuro tweeted. “They are a key part of Moscow's soft power strategy on the continent today.”

— Estonia and Latvia announced Monday that they will remove Russia’s ambassadors in their countries after Moscow asked Estonia’s ambassador to leave over allegations of “Russophobia,” according to Politico. The pair will become the second and third Baltic countries to downgrade ties with Russia following Lithuania’s decision to expel its Russian ambassador in April of last year.

— Western officials want Ukraine to shift its focus away from Bakhmut in order to prepare for an offensive in the south, according to CNN. On Wednesday, shortly after CNN’s report came out, Ukraine conceded that it had lost Soledar, a key town outside of Bakhmut.

— In a major reversal, the U.S. and Germany agreed to send tanks to Ukraine despite concerns about how the move would be received in Moscow, according to the Associated Press. Ukrainian officials have now set their sights on modern Western fighter jets to replace or at least strengthen Kyiv’s Soviet-era fleet.

— Turkey’s foreign minister said it would be “meaningless” to restart NATO accession talks with Sweden and Finland after a protest in Stockholm in which a far-right activist burned a Quran, according to Reuters. Ankara’s tough talk may be an effort to build support for embattled President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before elections in May.

U.S. State Department news:

In a Wednesday press conference, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Washington is committed to improving ties with African countries that are skeptical of American policies, including those who have been historically tied to Russia. “The United States is ready, willing, and able to be a partner of first resort to the countries across Africa,” Price said. “We are not looking to use Africa as a new geopolitical stomping ground or playground. We’re not looking for relationships that are extractive, that export chaos, that export instability, that advantage only American private companies, as you’ve seen an approach taken by countries who have a different model.”


Europe
Ursula von der Leyen Benjamin Netanyahu
Top image credit: miss.cabul and noamgalai via shutterstock.com

Europe finally stands up to Israel — but only halfway

Europe

In a significant and long-overdue shift, the European Commission has finally moved to recalibrate its relationship with Israel. Its proposed package of measures — sanctioning extremist Israeli ministers and violent settlers and suspending valuable trade concessions — marks the most substantive attempt by the EU to impose consequences for the Netanyahu government’s conduct in Gaza and the West Bank.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who once stood accused of a pronounced pro-Israeli bias, now states unequivocally that “the horrific events taking place in Gaza on a daily basis must stop.” Her declaration that the EU remains an “unwavering champion of the two-state solution” being “undermined by the Israeli government’s recent settlement actions” is a stark admission that Brussels can no longer ignore the chasm between its stated principles and its enabling actions.

These steps are important. They signal a breaking point with an Israeli government that has dismissed, with increasing contempt, the concerns of its European partners. The proposed tariffs, reinstating Most Favored Nation rates on €5.8 billion of Israeli exports, are not merely symbolic; they are a tangible economic pressure designed to get Jerusalem’s attention. The targeted sanctions against ministers responsible for inflammatory rhetoric and policies add a necessary layer of personal accountability.

Yet, for all its heft, this package suffers from critical flaws: it is horribly late, it remains dangerously incomplete, and it is a crisis, to a large degree, of Europe’s own making.

First, the delay. For almost two years since Hamas’ attack on Israel and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza leading to the killing of more than 60,000 people the world has watched the devastating conflict unfold. The EU, “the biggest donor of humanitarian aid,” has been forced to react to a catastrophe its own trade and political support helped underwrite. This response, only now materializing after immense public and diplomatic pressure, feels less like proactive statecraft and more like a belated attempt to catch up to reality — and to the moral courage already shown by several of its own member states.

Second, and most glaringly, the package omits the most logical and legally sound measure: a full ban on trade with Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. This is a profound failure of principle and policy. The settlements are universally recognized under international law as illegal. They are the very engine of the occupation that von der Leyen now claims is undermining the two-state solution.

While the Commission hesitates, what the Brussels-based head of the European Middle East Project Martin Konecny calls “a domino effect” is taking hold at the national level. The Dutch government has just announced it will ban imports from Israeli settlements, becoming the fifth EU member state to do so, following recent and decisive moves by Ireland, Slovenia, Belgium, and Spain. This growing coalition underscores both the moral imperative and the political feasibility of such a measure that the Commission continues to avoid.

Furthermore, this is not merely a political choice; it is a legal obligation. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its landmark opinion last year, made clear that all states are required to cease trade and support that facilitates Israel’s illegal settlement regime. As a matter of EU law, a union-wide ban could — and should — be implemented by a qualified majority vote as a necessary trade measure to uphold fundamental legal principles. The continued failure to do so renders the EU complicit in perpetuating the very system it now claims to oppose.

Third, the Commission’s entire approach suffers from a crippling legal and moral loophole: its proposed measures are framed purely through a humanitarian lens, deliberately sidestepping the EU’s explicit legal obligations to prevent genocide. By focusing solely on suspending parts of the Association Agreement, the proposal ignores the most direct form of complicity — the continued flow of arms from member states to Israel.

These lethal transfers, which fall outside the Agreement’s scope, are the subject of Nicaragua’s landmark case against Germany at the ICJ, which argues that providing weapons to a state plausibly committing genocide is a violation of the Genocide Convention. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Germany alone accounted for 30% of Israel’s major arms imports in 2019-2023. Berlin continued licensing the arms exports after the outbreak of war in 2023. The Commission’s failure to even address, let alone propose to halt, this pipeline of weapons from the member states while invoking “horrific events” reveals a strategic timidity that undermines the very rule of law it claims to defend.

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House seeks to expand secretive arms stockpile used in Gaza war
Israeli soldiers prepare shells near a mobile artillery unit, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Israel, January 2, 2024. (REUTERS/Amir Cohen)

House seeks to expand secretive arms stockpile used in Gaza war

Washington Politics

The House is poised to expand the use of a secretive mechanism for funneling weapons to Israel.

Hidden deep in a must-pass State Department funding bill is a provision that would allow for unlimited transfers of U.S. weapons to a special Israel-based stockpile in the next fiscal year, strengthening a pathway for giving American weapons to Israel with reduced public scrutiny. The House Foreign Affairs Committee is set to discuss the bill Wednesday morning.

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Pedro Sanchez
Top image credit: Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez during the summit of Heads of State and Government of the European Union at the European Council in Brussels in Belgium the 26th of July 2025, Martin Bertrand / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Spain's break from Europe on Gaza is more reaction than vision

Europe

The final stage of the Vuelta a España, Spain’s premier cycling race, was abandoned in chaos on Sunday. Pro-Palestinian protesters, chanting “they will not pass,” overturned barriers and occupied the route in Madrid, forcing organizers to cancel the finale and its podium ceremony. The demonstrators’ target was the participation of an Israeli team. In a statement that captured the moment, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed his “deep admiration for the Spanish people mobilizing for just causes like Palestine.”

The event was a vivid public manifestation of a potent political sentiment in Spain — one that the Sánchez government has both responded to and, through its foreign policy, legitimized. This dynamic has propelled Spain into becoming the European Union’s most vocal dissenting voice on the war in Gaza, marking a significant break from the transatlantic foreign policy orthodoxy.

Sanchez’s support for the protesters was not merely rhetorical. On Monday, he escalated his stance, explicitly calling for Israel to be barred from international sports competitions, drawing a direct parallel to the exclusion of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. “Our position is clear and categorical: as long as the barbarity continues, neither Russia nor Israel should participate in any international competition,” he said. This position, which angered Israel and Spanish conservatives alike, was further amplified by his culture minister, who suggested Spain should boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest if Israel participates.

More significantly, it emerged that his government had backed its strong words with concrete action, cancelling a €700 million ($825 million) contract for Israeli-designed rocket launchers. This move, following an earlier announcement of measures aimed at stopping what it called “the genocide in Gaza,” demonstrates a willingness to leverage economic and diplomatic tools that other EU capitals have avoided.

Sánchez, a master political survivalist, has not undergone a grand ideological conversion to anti-interventionism. Instead, he has proven highly adept at reading and navigating domestic political currents. His government’s stance on Israel and Palestine is a pragmatic reflection of his coalition that depends on the support of the left for which this is a non-negotiable priority.

This instinct for pragmatic divergence extends beyond Gaza. Sánchez has flatly refused to commit to NATO’s target of spending 5% of GDP on defense demanded by the U.S. President Donald Trump and embraced by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, citing budgetary constraints and social priorities.

Furthermore, Spain has courted a role as a facilitator between great powers. This ambition was realized when Madrid hosted a critical high level meeting between U.S. and Chinese trade officials on September 15 — a meeting Trump lauded as successful while reaffirming “a very strong relationship” between the U.S. and China. This outreach is part of a consistent policy; Sánchez’s own visit to Beijing, at a time when other EU leaders like the high representative for foreign policy Kaja Kallas were ratcheting up anti-Chinese rhetoric, signals a deliberate pursuit of pragmatic economic ties over ideological confrontation.

Yet, for all these breaks with the mainstream, Sánchez’s foreign policy is riddled with a fundamental contradiction. On Ukraine, his government remains in alignment with the hardline Brussels consensus. This alignment is most clearly embodied by his proxy in Brussels, Iratxe García Pérez, the leader of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament. In a stark display of this hawkishness, García Pérez used the platform of the State of the Union debate with the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to champion the demand to outright seize frozen Russian sovereign assets.

This reckless stance, which reflects the EU’s broader hawkish drift on Ukraine, is thankfully tempered only by a lack of power to implement it, rendering it largely a symbolic act of virtue signaling. The move is not just of dubious legality; it is a significant error in statecraft. It would destroy international trust in the Eurozone as a safe repository for assets. Most critically, it would vaporize a key bargaining chip that could be essential in securing a future negotiated settlement with Russia. It is a case of ideological posturing overriding strategic calculation.

This contradiction reveals the core of Sánchez’s doctrine: it is circumstantial, not convictional. His breaks with orthodoxy on Israel, defense spending and China are significant, but driven, to a large degree, by the necessity of domestic coalition management. His alignment on Ukraine is the path of least resistance within the EU mainstream, requiring no difficult choices that would upset his centrist instincts or his international standing.

Therefore, Sánchez is no Spanish De Gaulle articulating a grand sovereigntist strategic vision. He is a fascinating case study in the fragmentation of European foreign policy. He demonstrates that even within the heart of the Western mainstream which he represents, dissent on specific issues like Gaza and rearmament is not only possible but increasingly politically necessary.

However, his failure to apply the same pragmatic, national interest lens to Ukraine — opting instead for the bloc’s thoughtless escalation — proves that his policy is more a product of domestic political arithmetic than coherent strategic vision. He is a weathervane, not a compass — but even a weathervane can indicate a shift in the wind, and the wind in Spain is blowing away from unconditional Atlanticism.

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