Parliament in favour of Swiss defence partnership with EU

The majority argued that the security policy framework in Europe has changed. Keystone-SDA

The Swiss House of Representatives backs the government in its plans for a security and defence partnership with the European Union. On Monday, it adopted a motion calling for talks to begin negotiations in this area.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

A minority of the House’s security commission, consisting mainly of representatives from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, failed in its attempt to reject the motion tabled by the majority of this committee.

The majority argued that the security policy framework in Europe has changed. This has been the case since the United States government increasingly withdrew from the common European security architecture. Closer security cooperation with the EU would also open up opportunities for joint, cheaper defence procurement, the majority said.

+ Swiss want more cooperation with NATO

In June, the government announced that it wanted to examine a security and defence partnership with the EU. This, it said, would be compatible with neutrality.

Translated from German with DeepL/gw

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail].