Why Switzerland attends NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly

Voting during a committee meeting at the recent gathering of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Ljubljana, Slovenia. NATO PA

When it comes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), you might think first of drones and government summits. But what is the NATO Parliamentary Assembly – and what’s neutral Switzerland doing there?

This June, just days before NATO leaders met in The Hague to set a new defence spending target of 5% of GDP, a quieter meeting took place over the border in Belgium. In Brussels, parliamentarians – rather than heads of state – had gathered for the 70th anniversary of an institution which is relatively unknown, but which acts as something of a legislative counterpoint to NATO as such: the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA).

Formally distinct from its bigger sibling – which is six years older – the Assembly doesn’t have a major decision-making role. Rather, it serves as a platform for dialogue and agenda-setting among the alliance’s national parliaments. NATO boss Mark Rutte has previously called it the alliance’s “voice of democracy”. It also opens its gatherings (albeit without voting rights) to observers and partners – including neutral, non-NATO Switzerland.

Looking in at the club

For over 25 years – since before it even joined the United Nations – Bern has been sending a parliamentary delegation twice yearly to NATO PA sessions, held across Europe and North America. Along with hundreds of other politicians, they listen, discuss and debate, all while – fittingly for Switzerland’s cautious stance on NATO – remaining a bit of an outlier. “It’s clear we’re not exactly part of the club,” says delegation head Priska Seiler Graf.

Read our reportage from the NATO PA’s most recent gathering in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana:

Seiler Graf, from the left-wing Social Democratic Party, mentions two ways this outsider role shows itself. One is the lack of voting rights, which leaves Switzerland in a rather “passive” role. This has especially been the case since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, she adds. Before, the NATO PA spent more time on “soft” issues like peace promotion, where Switzerland might have had more to say. Now, military deterrence – and NATO’s article 5 – is high on the agenda.

Swiss neutrality can also lead to confusion. In 2022, for example, questions were asked of Bern’s refusal to allow the re-export of Swiss-made weapons to Kyiv. “We had to explain what’s possible as a neutral country and what’s not,” Seiler Graf says. In general, clearing up misconceptions about “what Switzerland is and what it does” is a key job of her delegation, which currently includes five parliamentarians from across the political spectrum (as of 2027, this number will be reduced to three, due to a NATO PA organisational shuffle).

Priska Seiler Graf at the recent NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Ljubljana. National Assembly / Matija Sušnik

The donut hole

Whether the message gets through is another question. In recent years, Switzerland has found itself accused by Moscow and plenty of online commentary of having ditched its neutrality. At the same time, some partners have criticised it as being too passive, or for freeloading off the West’s security umbrella; a former US Ambassador in Bern called it “the hole in the NATO donut”. A Dutch general recently saidExternal link Swiss arms exports rules are “bullshit”.

At the NATO PA, however, Seiler Graf says confusion has largely faded: neutrality is “no longer an issue”. Most parliamentarians appreciate Switzerland as a “stable, reliable neutral place in the middle of Europe”, she says. Her delegation colleague, Andrea Gmür from the Centre Party, agrees. There is “no pressure” to boost spending or join NATO – Switzerland is “warmly accepted”, even if it doesn’t have a say, Gmür said in an interviewExternal link earlier this year.

Scant opposition

Even in Bern, where NATO and neutrality are touchy topics, involvement at the NATO PA is not much of an issue. While other forms of NATO cooperation – such as sending soldiers on peacekeeping missions – have sparked debate, the NATO PA flies under the radar somewhat. That is, “as long as the Swiss role remains more passive than active”, says another delegate, the Green Party’s Mathias Zopfi.

In early 2025, just over half of Swiss were in favour of closer cooperation with NATO; 30% said they wanted to join the alliance:

But is the low profile a sign of tacit approval by Swiss politicians – or a sign of the NATO PA’s irrelevance? Even among Swiss lawmakers, it’s relatively unknown. Seiler Graf says that when she tells others in parliament about it, the reaction is often one of bewilderment.

Gorana Grgic, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) in Zurich, says the NATO PA’s role is hard to gauge. “It’s influential in shaping debates – but it has no enforcement mechanisms,” she says. It issues recommendations and resolutions, but big decisions – budgetary or operational – can only be made by national leaders. The Assembly is rather a “space for debate and exchange” and for “connecting NATO with national publics”, she says.

One example of this lack of clout has been efforts to boost democracy. In recent years the Assembly has repeatedly demanded the creation of a “Centre for Democratic Resilience” – an office to coordinate NATO’s various pro-democracy programmes. Yet despite 18 such calls, the idea is still blocked at NATO level; Hungary doesn’t want it.

Meanwhile, the revival of NATO – due to tensions with Russian – brings opportunities and challenges for parliamentary engagement in defence policy generally. “In crises, authority typically flows to executives because they have to act fast; in this case, legislatures often defer to the executive or struggle to deliberate quickly,” says Grgic. The NATO PA only meets officially twice per year.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is a fixture at the parliamentary assembly’s two annual meetings. NATO PA

National pushback

Still, national parliaments obviously have a certain power over military and NATO policy.

For example, in Slovenia – which hosted the October 2025 NATO PA session – the 5% spending target announced in June sparked a domestic kerfuffle that could have ended badly. Critics, who said Prime Minister Robert Golob overstepped his powers at The Hague, proposed a referendum to lower the spending target to 3%. Golob retaliated by threatening a popular vote on the country’s membership of NATO outright. “Either we stay in the Alliance and pay the membership fee, or we leave,” he said.

In the end, the situation deescalated, and no referendum will be held at all. But it “clearly showed how domestic politics can shape a country’s NATO policy and complicate alliance consensus”, Grgic says.

High levels of concentration at the NATO PA’s gathering in Ljubljana, October 2025. National Assembly / Matija Sušnik

Democratic oversight

As for how democracies approach parliamentary oversight of the military generally, this varies widely. A 2024 studyExternal link by the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF), done in collaboration with the NATO PA, gives an overview of differences across NATO states. Some require parliamentary approval before a foreign military operation; in others, the government just needs to “consult” parliament. The amount of information it has to share with lawmakers also varies.

“The whole area is challenging, especially due to the need to balance democratic oversight with national security,” says report co-author Kristina Vezon. Parliaments might lack the time, resources or expertise to keep a watch over complex military operations. They also don’t always have access to military information. “In some countries lawmakers automatically have the highest level of security clearance; in others they don’t,” Vezon says.

The NATO PA, meanwhile, isn’t designed to act as a formal oversight body. Vezon describes it as more of a “high-level platform”. At its get-togethers, the tone is about sharing best practices and listening to inputs from experts – including from DCAF, which was set up in 1999 as part of Switzerland’s contribution to NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme.

In what ways does Switzerland actually cooperate with NATO? And how is the relationship evolving? Read more here:

The Swiss case

And the Swiss position when it comes to parliamentary oversight of military? Not only is the country neutral and non-NATO – it also has an idiosyncratic political system, based on a cross-party coalition government; there is no parliamentary “opposition” as such. Wide direct democratic tools also allow citizens to vote on certain areas of foreign and security policy. The initiative to enshrine a strict definition of neutrality in the constitution is a clear example.

For Seiler Graf, these checks mean there’s less chance of the executive flying solo on military affairs. “If something important seems to be heading off course, parliament can do something about it,” she says.

Even buying new fighter jets is a challenge within the Swiss direct democratic framework. Yet with the government still in charge of much of security and defence policy, some lawmakers would like more oversight powers, Seiler Graf says. “As parliamentarians, we don’t just want to be consulted – we want to be asked, and to vote”.

Edited by Benjamin von Wyl/ts