- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
- Sparks fly as Orban berates EU 'elites' in parliament trip
- US finalizes rule to remove lead pipes within a decade
- Solanke hungry for second England cap after seven-year wait
- Gilded canopy restored at Vatican basilica
Swiss neutrality under fire over Ukraine war
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pushed Switzerland to shed taboos, with calls for rearmament and unprecedented sanctions putting its deeply engrained neutrality to the test of a war in Europe.
Critics in Switzerland have warned that government moves could "torpedo" one of the wealthy Alpine nation's key principles, dictating no involvement in conflicts between other states.
After Russian troops entered Ukraine on February 24, Bern cited that neutrality when it initially refrained from jumping onboard with biting sanctions imposed by the European Union.
But four days later, the government buckled to international pressure and imposed all the EU sanctions, prompting criticism it was throwing neutrality to the wind.
The move, which the government insisted was "compatible" with its neutrality, was widely welcomed on the international stage.
It even earned a mention in US President Joe Biden's State of the Union address, when he hailed that "even Switzerland" was with those striving to hold Moscow accountable for its aggression.
But at home, it sparked outrage from the far right, which demands total neutrality, both on military and political.
The largest party, the populist right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), has threatened to push the issue to a referendum, as part of the country's direct democracy system.
The SVP has also lashed out at Bern's efforts to gain a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, warning this would "torpedo" the country's neutrality.
The government has argued that if it is granted the seat in June elections, it can simply abstain on issues that cast doubt on its neutrality.
- "Schizophrenia" -
The Swiss candidacy has meanwhile received backing from most lawmakers, and all other parties have voiced support for the sanctions.
"This marks a move towards a more active political neutrality," Swiss-American political scientist Daniel Warner told AFP.
Former president Micheline Calmy-Rey has chimed in, insisting that while militarily neutral, Switzerland is "free to defend its interests by adapting its foreign policy, and is free to impose sanctions".
Switzerland distinguishes between the law of neutrality -- which was codified in The Hague Conventions of 1907 and which imposes non-participation in international armed conflict -- and the policy of neutrality.
The latter is not governed by law, and its implementation "is determined according to the international context of the moment", the government explains on its website.
The combination can make for complex policy decisions.
At times it tilts towards "schizophrenia", Warner said.
He pointed to how Switzerland followed the EU sanctions against Moscow, but refused to participate in a widely-backed boycott at the UN of Russia's chief diplomat Sergei Lavrov.
This is not the first time Swiss neutrality has been questioned.
"During the Cold War, one could say it was a completely Atlanticist neutrality," Stephanie Roulin, a Fribourg University historian, told AFP.
- 'Very malleable' neutrality -
The Swiss, she said, had for instance given in to "American pressure" and "secretly committed to respect the economic embargo against the Eastern bloc countries", agreed in the Hotz-Linder Accord of 1951.
"Swiss neutrality was very malleable and was applied according to Switzerland's economic and financial interests," agreed historian Hans-Ulrich Jost, honorary professor at Lausanne University.
He pointed out that Switzerland's refusal to join the international boycott of South Africa against the racist apartheid system "allowed it to become an intermediary in the gold trade".
Many observers also suggest Switzerland violated the principle of neutrality during World War II, with massive weapon exports to the Axis powers.
The conflict in Ukraine has also rattled Swiss defence policies, and put previously taboo topics on the table.
Some have gone so far as to evoke a rapprochement with NATO or the EU's defence cooperation, while calls to boost defence spending have multiplied.
Swiss army chief Thomas Sussli stressed in a recent interview with the Tribune de Geneve daily that if Switzerland needs to defend itself, "neutrality will be null and void".
In such a case, he said, "We would need to ally ourselves with other states, and possibly also with NATO."
L.Mason--AMWN