Defence Minister Ueli Maurer says that spending on the Swiss army provides peace and well-being for the Swiss population and is an investment for the future.
At an end-of-year event in the resort of Adelboden in the Bernese Alps on Tuesday, he told journalists that security was at the top of his priorities.
Maurer explained that the world was becoming less safe and people in Switzerland felt less secure.
He said Switzerland had mastered the financial crisis and placed itself well in the economic recovery. But this, he noted, had created some envy as well as political and economic pressure on Switzerland.
“We need to be in form for the future and that’s the reason why security must be continually optimised,” Maurer said in a statement.
He added that the army could play a deciding role in a crisis situation.
All rights reserved. The content of the website by swissinfo.ch is copyrighted. It is intended for private use only. Any other use of the website content beyond the use stipulated above, particularly the distribution, modification, transmission, storage and copying requires prior written consent of swissinfo.ch. Should you be interested in any such use of the website content, please contact us via contact@swissinfo.ch.
As regards the use for private purposes, it is only permitted to use a hyperlink to specific content, and to place it on your own website or a website of third parties. The swissinfo.ch website content may only be embedded in an ad-free environment without any modifications. Specifically applying to all software, folders, data and their content provided for download by the swissinfo.ch website, a basic, non-exclusive and non-transferable license is granted that is restricted to the one-time downloading and saving of said data on private devices. All other rights remain the property of swissinfo.ch. In particular, any sale or commercial use of these data is prohibited.
