Swiss voters keep Bern's power to impose sanctions without UN backing by a projected 71%

The no side also beat its polling. An SRG and GFS Bern survey before the vote had opposition at 63% and support at 34% ^[13]. Another late survey, cited by Reuters, had 68% against and 31% in favour ^[14]. Against those two, the projected no share gained 8 points and 3 points ^[20], and the implied yes share of about 29% ^[21] came in 5 and 2 points under where the surveys had it ^[22]. State broadcaster SRF's projections put the no at more than two-thirds ^[2].

The part of the ballot that touches money is the sanctions clause, since the proposal would have blocked the country from imposing economic sanctions ^[17]. The amendment would have banned independent sanctions imposed over armed conflicts unless a UN Security Council resolution backed them ^[7]. Since February 2022 the government has adopted most of the EU's 20 sanctions packages against Russia ^[18], after declining in 2014 to join sanctions over Russia's annexation of Crimea ^[19]. Those adoptions were government decisions made under a constitution with no provision on how neutrality is put into practice ^[11]. After the vote, the government does not have to wait for a Security Council resolution before matching an EU package ^[7].

The ballot also packed a second question into the same yes or no. The text would have limited cooperation with NATO and other defence alliances to cases where Switzerland itself came under attack ^[9]. Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis argued that the measure would harm national security and prevent Switzerland from training with NATO ^[6], and apart from the Swiss People's Party, most parties and the government opposed it ^[10]. The 71% cannot be divided between the two clauses. If most of the no came from voters protecting NATO training, the vote is a weaker mandate for the Russia sanctions than the headline share suggests.

I think the sanctions reading holds anyway. "Swiss voters like neutrality, but they approve of how the government is implementing it at present," said Fabio Wasserfallen, a professor of European politics at the University of Bern ^[15]. "They are also generally in favour of the sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine, and don't want that to change," he said ^[16]. The counter-case comes from Christoph Blocher, the billionaire businessman and backer of the party. "Switzerland has not had a war for 200 years because it is permanently armed and neutral," he said ^[4]. "But neutrality has been followed less and less in recent years," he told Reuters, adding that Russia now sees Switzerland as a party to the conflict because of the sanctions ^[5].

The result leaves practice where successive governments have put it: outside NATO and the EU, with limited part in NATO's Partnership for Peace and in international peacekeeping missions ^[12]. Cassis said in a recent television debate that neutrality had always been applied with a degree of flexibility and that it does not mean indifference ^[8].