Swiss government opts against crackdown on honorary consuls and shady dealings

The Federal Council, the cabinet of ministers, will not tighten control over the work of honorary consuls, despite demands from MPs. Keystone / Anthony Anex

Despite a series of dubious incidents involving foreign honorary consuls in Switzerland, the government has decided against tightening oversight. Instead, it has settled for a review of existing procedures, even though the Senate’s control committee had called for stricter measures. 

Art smuggling, corruption, fraud, drug and arms trafficking, terrorism financing, sexual abuse and even murder. In 2022, an international journalistic investigationExternal link uncovered more than 500 cases worldwide of honorary consuls who had run into trouble with the law. 

Switzerland was not spared. The investigation notably highlighted the case of the Swiss billionaire art collector Urs E. SchwarzenbachExternal link, the honorary consul for Mongolia in Switzerland from 2010 to 2022. He was convicted for failing to declare hundreds of artworks imported into Switzerland, some of them while he was still in office. 

Following the publication, parliament’s control committees called on the Parliamentary Control of the Administration to evaluate Swiss honorary consulates abroad as well as foreign honorary consulates in Switzerland.

Today, 122 honorary consuls representing 65 countries are accredited in Switzerland. They are not career diplomats: alongside their honorary role, they pursue professional activities, often as entrepreneurs or lawyers. 

However, honorary consuls benefit from certain privileges and partial immunityExternal link. For example, authorities in other countries may not seize documents they declare to be related to their official functions, nor search their luggage at the border. This raises a key question examined in the report: how does Switzerland select and monitor these individuals? 

The Parliamentary Control of the Administration’s evaluationExternal link, published last November, shows that the foreign ministry views its responsibility for honorary consulates in Switzerland as limited. The ministry stresses that states are responsible for overseeing their own representations. When problematic cases have arisen, it has intervened only cautiously, in order to preserve bilateral relations with the countries concerned. 

Several scandals uncovered 

The report cites the case of Hermann Beyeler, the honorary consul for Belarus in Switzerland since 2019External link. In 2024, the NGO Libereco called for his dismissal, accusing him of damaging Switzerland’s reputation and using his diplomatic status to advance his business interests. Newspapers from the Tamedia group revealed that he was conducting lucrative business with the regime of Alexander Lukashenko and that his company had become one of the main suppliers to the Belarusian state monopoly for prosthetics. 

The foreign ministry chose not to intervene with the embassy concerned, arguing that the accusations were of a moral nature and that no breach of the law had been established. 

In a written response to Swissinfo, Beyeler firmly rejects the NGO’s allegations and those reported in the media, which he describes as inaccurate and misleading. He says his company helped address an acute shortage of prosthetics in Belarus through Swiss deliveries. According to him, the accusations form part of a commercially motivated campaign involving competing suppliers from Estonia and the United States. 

The honorary consul stresses that his status did not serve his business interests. Instead, he says, he suffered significant disadvantages following publication of the articles and faced threats to his own safety and that of his family. He adds that no Swiss prosthetics deliveries were made to Belarus in 2025. 

The Parliamentary Control of the Administration evaluation also notes that the foreign ministry is not always aware of problems. In 2021, the Pandora Papers revealed that Lithuania’s honorary consul in Switzerland managed companies that concealed real estate assets belonging to Russian oligarchs. “The Foreign Ministry’s protocol department was not aware of the reasons that led him to step down,” the evaluation says. 

Another criticism: the foreign ministry itself does not always apply its own guidelines for these representations. In principle, Switzerland accepts only one honorary consulate per linguistic region. In practice, however, it allows exceptions. For example, the principality of Monaco, with just 15 nationals in Switzerland, has four honorary consulates, three of them located in the German-speaking region. 

No fines for traffic offences

Based on these findings, the Senate’s control committee called on the governmentExternal link to respond more firmly to problematic cases. It recommended, in particular, that the foreign ministry clarify admission procedures for honorary consuls. “Given the current global situation, marked by a persistently high risk of espionage in Switzerland, the authorities must reconsider their understanding of their role and their sense of responsibility,” it wrote. 

As an example, the committee pointed out that the ministry’s leniency allowed one honorary consul to commit traffic offences with complete impunity. For several years, the individual accumulated numerous fines in different cantons, systematically invoking immunity to avoid paying them. 

The ministry contacted him to remind him that honorary consuls’ immunity covers only acts carried out in the exercise of their official functions. Despite this, he persisted until a criminal investigation was opened.

The government refuses to tighten the rules

On February 11, the government responded to the committee’s criticism. Its stance shows little appetite for action. It pledges to review procedures relating to the establishment of honorary consulates, but above all, it reiterates that oversight of honorary consuls in Switzerland lies with the mission state. It is also that country, the government writes, “which bears the primary reputational risk if the honorary consul it has appointed behaves inappropriately”. 

The government also stresses that honorary consuls enjoy immunity only within the scope of their official duties and must comply with Swiss law. It says that where there are indications of inappropriate or unlawful behaviour, the situation is assessed and the relevant services coordinate to determine appropriate measures. 

These can range from a diplomatic démarche with the embassy concerned demanding compliance with the rules to a summons to the ambassador, or even revoking honorary consul status. 

A system open to abuse? 

Carlo Sommaruga, a Social Democratic senator and member of the Senate’s Control Committee, acknowledges that Switzerland’s room for manoeuvre is limited. “It is complicated to intervene in the appointment of honorary consuls by other states,” he says. “However, the foreign ministry must act more firmly when a scandal or misconduct harms Switzerland as the host country.” 

The revelations of recent years raise broader questions about the system of honorary consuls: does it allow the concealment of dubious activities behind an honorary title and partial immunity? Sommaruga does not see a systemic problem. “It is possible that some individuals seek to become honorary consuls to hide such dealings, but I do not believe states deliberately appoint dubious individuals. That would run counter to their own interests,” he says. 

Edited by Samuel Jaberg/ds