Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
Today’s briefing is a rather diplomatic one: after an update on the situation at the Swiss embassy in Sudan, we take a trip back to an embarrassing ambassadorial story from 1996, before getting the now-daily update of how Swiss neutrality is seen around the world.
Sudan: Swiss embassy closes, and staff evacuated – situation unclear for Swiss nationals.
The Swiss foreign ministry was initially tight-lipped about rescue efforts from conflict-ridden Khartoum. But last night concrete news was finally reported: the embassy has been closed, and seven staff along with five accompanying people have been evacuated from the Sudanese capital – 10 with the help of France, and two with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The operation went “without incident”, the ministry wrote.
As during the historic repatriation effort at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the evacuation had much to do with help from diplomatic friends; Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis tweeted thanks for the “collaboration with our partners, in particular France”. It was also reported on Sunday that Italy had helped to fly out some Swiss citizens along with its own nationals.
It’s unclear however if and how many Swiss citizens have left Sudan, and exactly how many are still there. Last week the foreign ministry said around 100 Swiss were in the country, though not all wanted to leave. Around thirty had indicated a desire to leave by Monday afternoon, the ministry said. It advises those who do want to get out to contact a helpline (see below).
Many other countries have also been organising flights out, while UN staff have also been reported trying to flee Khartoum by road, to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan.
- Swiss foreign ministry helplineExternal link – EDA
- Switzerland shuts embassy in KhartoumExternal link – Blick report
- Covid-19 repatriation effort ends (April 2020) – SWI swissinfo.ch
Foreign relations: when a Swiss diplomat went beyond his brief(s).
From impatient G7 ambassadors to threatening Russian ones (see below), difficult foreign diplomats have been in the Swiss news recently. But are the Swiss emissaries themselves always so perfectly behaved? Not according to a history piece in today’s Neue Zürcher Zeitung, which recalls an embarrassing incident from 1996, when “the world had a good laugh” about the Swiss ambassador in Romania.
At the time, another Swiss paper, the SonntagsBlick, broke the explosive story under the headline: “the steamy affair of our man in Bucharest”. The diplomat, it turned out, had been having a fairly public and obvious affair with a 21-year-old Romanian “sex bomb” (the words of the SonntagsBlick), whom he had lavished with attention, gifts, and even a fancy apartment.
So far, so private. However, the 21-year-old journalist was reportedly not just after the ambassador’s love: she was also working for the Romanian intelligence services to wangle some diplomatic secrets from her Alpine lover. When a Swiss investigation confirmed she was a spy, the distracted ambassador was judged a liability, and he was duly shipped back to a quieter desk in Bern.
The Washington Post, when it learned of the story, wrote that the ambassador had been “taken in by one of the oldest tricks in the book”. The ambassador himself, after learning that the story had gone public, wrote simply: “shit, shit, shit”. A lesson for aspiring diplomats…
- Of soap, sex, and spiesExternal link – the NZZ’s story (paywall)
- The little-known Swiss cuckoo clock spy scandal – SWI swissinfo.ch
- G7 and Russian ambassadors make for headaches in Bern – SWI swissinfo.ch
Neutrality: still providing daily debates.
Neutrality, neutrality, neutrality: if you say a word often enough, it can lose its meaning. Will this be the fate of the Swiss variant? After a year of soul-searching about the national role (or rather, non-role) in a changing geopolitical context, views on neutrality are still coming in thick and fast. Here’s three more:
Foreign minister Ignazio Cassis: after a friendly visit to Rome last week, Cassis said he was “not surprised” that his Italian counterpart spoke highly of Swiss neutrality. There is a diplomatic reality and a media-reported reality, Cassis said: in the former, “we find confirmation that the role of Switzerland as a neutral country is in the interests of the international community”.
Swiss Ambassador to the UN Pascale Baeriswyl: the UN security council is not overly concerned about definitions of Swiss neutrality, Baeriswyl told RTS public radio this morning. The council’s aim is to solve conflicts across the globe; in this context, Swiss commitment to international law is seen positively. Europe is much closer to the Ukrainian conflict than New York – this could explain the wrangling about Swiss neutrality there.
Former Swiss Broadcasting Corporation boss Roger de Weck: neutrality is a “sham” which Switzerland needs to prop up its identity, de Weck told the NZZ today. “Our security depends on NATO, full stop. We are freeriding on NATO, now more than ever […] Economic interdependence with the West, without political solidarity with Europe and the US, is no longer acceptable. We need to reinvent our neutrality.”
- Former diplomat Martin Dahinden on the Swiss image – SWI swissinfo.ch
- Pascale Baeriswyl on neutrality and the UNExternal link – RTS radio
- Update on Swiss-Italian relations from Ignazio CassisExternal link – SRF radio
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