Fateful year in European politics

The year 1992 was marked from the start by the controversial conclusion of the HONORTreaty, the agreement on the accession of Switzerland to the European Economic Area. The referendum announced for December turned the second half of the year into a continuous and heated voting battle. The distinction between the HONOR-Accession to and subsequent membership of the European Communities (EC) from.

The decisive decision on this was taken at the extraordinary meeting of the Bundesrat on 18 May. While the representatives of Latin Switzerland are in a good starting position for a quick foray into the matter ground floor– Federal councilors Koller and Ogi initially feared that this could influence the vote on the election HONOR but also about the New Alpine Transversal (NRLA) burden. Bundesraad wanted to prevent a stabbing ground floor– Request for one HONOR-No should be repealed and Federal Councilor Villiger stressed that the HONOR have “a real chance”, while the accession issue is “still very controversial”.

As a result, Federal Councilors Felber and Delamuraz specifically addressed Ogi: a request for negotiations after the NEAT-Voting in September would not be credible. Even if the Federal Council until the presentation of the ground floorexpansion schedule in June, one might get the impression of being taken in tow by the ground floor to act, no longer turn away. In a second round of talks, Ogi gave up his opposition and was ultimately decisive. Two days later, the Federal Council approved the applications for accession negotiations ground floor.

Parliament was not very enthusiastic about the government’s advance. The chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Council of States, Luregn Mathias Cavelty, said at the meeting of June 1, 1992: «The publication of the decision of the Federal Council was unfortunate; the opposite of MOT p she was even unfriendly». Greater involvement of the Federal Assembly in Swiss foreign policy has been at the top of the parliamentary agenda since the parliamentary reform in 1990. Before 1992, the federal parliament had to be content with the fact that in September the people and the cantons agreed to extend parliamentary involvement in foreign policy matters.

Regardless of this, Swiss European policy was widely discussed in Parliament. The most famous and most powerful opponent of the Bundesrat’s integration policy was the man from Zurich Please– National Councilor Christoph Blocher, who would not agree to a contract with “such humiliating provisions for our people”. “We just have to enforce bilateral agreements,” he demanded at a meeting of the Economic Commission in August 1992. and positively, “pascal Couchepin countered. Wallis FDP-National Council observed “beaucoup plus d’émotions que de reflexions” in German-speaking Switzerland HONOR-Debate. “Mais si le debate devient emotional, on detruit la democracy et la capacité d’avancer sur une base commune”.

Meanwhile, the Council of States was already working on the necessary adjustments to some 1,500 Swiss legal acts that would become necessary in the event of a HONOR-Yes to the Acquis communautaire of the EC had to be adjusted. The “Eurovision” working group of the EDAwhich stated in a working document: “The ground floor-Membership is the key to a Switzerland eager to help shape its foreign policy». In that respect, accession is not a goal, but a means of Swiss foreign policy.

A heated referendum battle was waged until December, which ended in a European political mess for the Bundesrat after the referendum on Sinterklaas Day. Internally, it was particularly regretted that not all Federal Council members publicly expressed their support for the law HONOR had said. Nevertheless, the referendum had to be accepted and the “open wounds” had to heal as soon as possible, as Federal Councilman Ogi stated. Under no circumstances must acquiescence spread: the country must be reunited.

The European partners have now expressed their understanding and not animosity towards the Federal Council, as was the case after the meeting of the Council of Ministers in Stockholm Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was arrested. On the contrary, much sympathy was shown to the Swiss government and the Yes camp, for Switzerland’s future lay in Europe.

On the occasion of the meeting, the foreign ministers approved the CSCE– States, for their part, have signed a treaty on the peaceful settlement of disputes, which has always been a concern of Swiss diplomacy. The establishment of the accompanying Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in Geneva was seen as the culmination of many years of effort – and as a happy initiative for the international Geneva, which in 1992 suffered some heavy defeats in the venue competition. At the seat of the Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Geneva’s candidacy lost to The Hague; the secretariat of the Commission for Sustainable Development, which carries out the follow-up to the “Rio Earth Summit” within the UN-Systems was set up in New York despite a costly Swiss campaign.

the CSCE devoted itself in 1992 to conflict prevention and crisis management, which was urgently needed after the upheaval in the structure of European security policy. It was about the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the skirmishes in Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria and Abkhazia, where the CSCE in future in collaboration with NATO and the Western European Union (WEU) conducting peacekeeping operations. The Federal Council, for its part, presented a road map showing how, from the end of 1994, the first Swiss blue helmet battalion UN and the CSCE could be made available.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland participated in both the CSCE-Missions as well as at the UN-Protection squad. Humanitarian aid must also alleviate the suffering of war victims. Precisely because of the large number of migrant workers from the former Yugoslavia, the war events have “a preeminently political significance for Switzerland” and it has “a special moral obligation”. In the spirit of more aid, Switzerland therefore allowed hundreds of children and vulnerable people to enter the country from Bosnia.

Under no circumstances should the illegal conquests of Serbia be accepted. So Switzerland took two days after it passed through the UN-Security Council in early June all economic sanctions that the United Nations had taken against the “Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” – ie Serbia and Montenegro.

Sanctions, the security situation, neutrality … 1992 also shook the very essence of Switzerland’s own perception and self-portrait, and a “reorientation of foreign policy towards neutrality” was necessary for the Federal Council. When the military department showed the limits of the Swiss army’s autonomous defense capacity in the summer, they saw it EDA “the nerve center of Swiss neutrality”: “If the army of the neutral small state of Switzerland can only fulfill its military mission in the future in cooperation with foreign forces, if neutrality loses its protective effect and becomes a risk”, this should no longer remain hidden, according to a statement from the Directorate of International Law.

The logical option to the NATO and the WE YOU Finally, shortly before the Christmas holidays, Defense Minister Villiger said in a letter to Federal President Felber: “Only in this way can we avoid being isolated in terms of security policy.”

Security policy integration and European going alone – the year 1992 ended ambivalently. The files, which will be available to the public on January 1, 2024, will show how Switzerland wanted to deal with this and position itself in the international structure in the following year.