Swiss Foundation forced to close in America
A lack of funds is forcing the Swiss Foundation for World Affairs (SFWA) to close its offices in Washington after four years and move to Geneva.
The think tank was set up to improve Switzerland’s image in the United States following the controversy over dormant Holocaust-era accounts.
The foundation’s director blamed the move mainly on the Swiss government’s decision to slash its financial contribution.
The SFWA, which is based at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, was set up as a neutral “think tank” to discuss issues including peace and security, human rights and international humanitarian law, and the environment.
Edouard Brunner, the foundation’s president and a former top diplomat, told swissinfo the SFWA wanted to kill off worn-out clichés. “We wanted to show that there was more to Switzerland than just banks and Heidi,” he added.
But the main aim was to improve Switzerland’s tarnished image in the US following the Holocaust assets affair when Jewish groups accused Swiss banks of not paying out funds belonging to Holocaust victims or their heirs.
Switzerland was also accused of cooperating closely with Germany’s wartime leaders.
Conferences
In the academic year 2004/2005 the think tank hosted 11 conferences and four seminars.
Speakers over the past few years have included Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor of various United Nations war crimes tribunals, and James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank.
Katharina Vögeli, the foundation’s director, said the decline in corporate donations meant the closure was unavoidable.
She admitted that the Swiss foreign ministry’s decision to drop the project two years ago had sent a damaging message to other donors.
Closer ties
The foundation has a budget of $650,000 (SFr823,000) and was initially funded by the public and private sectors in equal measure. Swiss government contributions have since fallen to around 15 per cent.
But Brunner refuses to point a finger at anybody.
“That contributions are constantly being reduced or cancelled is the fault of neither the Swiss government nor private enterprise,” he said.
Vögeli says she is at a loss to explain why the office in Washington is being closed at a time when the Swiss government is seeking closer ties with the United States.
Economics Minister Joseph Deiss is due to travel to Washington next month for exploratory discussions on a free-trade agreement with the US – Switzerland’s second-biggest export market.
Assistant Secretary of State Arthur Dewey, who was a keynote speaker at an SFWA meeting in March on migration, also expressed his disappointment.
“The foundation has built important bridges and revived the ‘spirit of Geneva’ in Washington,” he said.
Brunner says the foundation will now be set up in Geneva “where we will organise three to four conferences or seminars a year”.
swissinfo with agencies
The word “think tank” goes back to the Second World War, when Allied officers met in tanks to analyse complex combat situations.
Today, think tanks are public-policy research institutes that aim to influence public thinking on key long-term policy issues.
Originally exclusive to the Anglo-Saxon world, the number of think tanks in Europe has been growing steadily since the 1970s.
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