Originally Posted by
NutLoose
Re Germany sending Gepards to Ukraine, the Swiss are now apparently applying their veto to prevent Swiss made ammo from being transferred from Germany to Ukraine
While
personally I would be in favour of sending Swiss weapons to Ukraine, our Swiss law is pretty clear (google translation) -
no weapons exports if ...:1)
The country of destination is involved in an internal or international armed conflict
2) The country of destination violates human rights systematically and severely.
3) The country of destination has a high risk that the war material to be exported will be used against the civilian population.
4) The country of destination has a high risk that the war material to be exported will War material is passed on to an undesirable end recipient.
Official site of the Swiss government: Google "seco.admin.ch Rüstungskontrolle rechtliche Grundlagen" (I'm not allowed to post links).
Originally Posted by
NutLoose
seriously though, how can you make a living selling arms and ammunition from a supposedly “neutral” country and then veto who they can sell, give or indeed fire it at. Who the hell would buy it under those terms..
You may not understand the deeply rooted attitude of most Swiss people that weapons are
necessary, but their
use should be avoided at any price. In other words: If you have a peaceful attitude, AND enough
defensive weapons, no one will bother you. This attitude dates back to 1515, when the Swiss (previously consudered the best medieval infantry force in Europe) were beaten near Milan (google "wikipedia Battle_of_Marignano"). The political consequences of that defeat were huge: "In fact, the Confederacy never went to war again at all after 1525, and there never was any Swiss military offensive against an external enemy again" (wikipedia).
That said, our weapons exports are about 0.1% of the GDP ...
Originally Posted by
NutLoose
The cynic in me does wonder if Germany deliberately picked a weapons system they knew they couldn’t deliver to show they were going to deliver “ heavy weapons” fully aware that Switzerland would veto it, thus allowing Germany a get out clause and the ability to blame the Swiss whilst showing the West they were “complying” with the requests to do more.
I guess you are probably right. And I'm sure a solution will be found.
S