IT’S not often these days that we hear a politician speak and know at once that his words really matter. But when US Vice President JD Vance addressed the Munich Security Conference on February 14, the extreme reactions from many of the European leaders present made it clear this was a game changer.
When he upbraided European ‘democracies’ for failing to recognise their greatest threat was not Russia or China, but ‘from within’, he was met with a stunned silence, but later, having recovered from his coolly delivered knockout blows, European leaders denounced him as an enemy of democracy and European values.
German Defence Secretary Boris Pistorius considered his words unacceptable, while Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, reckoned he was trying to pick a fight. It was ‘insulting, just empirically not true’, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hit out peevishly that it was ‘interfering in our democracy’. The outgoing chairman Christoph Heusgen managed to reduce this high dudgeon to high farce when he burst into tears delivering his farewell statement, betraying the underlying shock to the EU system.
In contrast, Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter, who holds the rotating presidency this year, managed to remain far more statesmanlike. For her, the speech was ‘liberal, in a very Swiss sense’, saying that ‘he spoke of values that we must defend and that we share, such as freedom, and the possibility for the people to express themselves. It was a call for Direct Democracy’. Parliamentary colleague Cyril Aellen supported her nuanced and comprehensive comments. ‘She didn’t take a position either for the US or for Europe, and by reaffirming Swiss neutrality, offers space for dialogue.’
This is very much in line with canny middle-of-the-road Swiss diplomacy, but in this case was sadly not the universal reaction, even from the President’s own Radical-Liberal party. ‘Liberalism doesn’t brandish the threat of tariffs,’ criticised Pascal Couchepin. The Green Party’s Lisa Mazzone claimed she was ‘isolating us from our main partner, the EU’, and was wary of the US administration’s support for the Far Right – no doubt a reference to Vance’s willingness to have dialogue with Germany’s Firewall-shunned AfD.
The political left has been particularly critical, but Keller-Sutter defended her statement, saying she had focused on ‘only one aspect’ of Vance’s remarks. ‘I was only referring to the part where JD Vance talked about listening to the population and guaranteeing freedom of expression – not the rest. It’s not my place to judge what he said about the US or Europe.
‘People often say our politics are boring, but the fact that we have a government representing four parties, regular voting and a culture of open criticism – like I’m receiving – shows that freedom of expression works in the Confederation.’
Thinking about the issues raised by Vance in his speech, this perception as ‘boring’ reflects the essentially conservative nature of the Swiss people and their culture, and a general reluctance to be associated with the wilder fringes of the woke and progressive West.
For example, Switzerland’s biggest political force, the right-wing populist Swiss People’s Party, is focused around three key principles: no to mass immigration, no to the European Union and no to the abandonment of Swiss neutrality. In 2023 it campaigned specifically against ‘cancel culture’ and what it calls ‘gender terror and woke madness’.
Its immigration policies are strict and selective, with the objective of limiting the population to below 10million. Between 2002 and 2023, more than 3million immigrants arrived in Switzerland but the majority came from EU countries, especially Germany, and 35 per cent left after one year. Those who remain contribute significantly more than they receive in benefits, since most are highly qualified. Fewer people immigrated to Switzerland last year, according to new data. Net immigration among the foreign permanent resident population fell by 15.6 per cent year-on-year to 83,392.
In line with other western countries, political opinion in Switzerland is polarising, albeit at a less frantic rate, underlining the growing threat to traditional Swiss neutrality and restraint. Opinion amongst younger voters, and those in the west and cities, is increasingly sympathetic to left-wing ideas, in particular to closer co-operation, even ultimate membership, with the EU.
Let’s hope that Swiss politicians, and the popular vote recorded via referenda, can continue to resist these pressures.
