Swiss defence minister Viola Amherd rejects criticism of army chief
Swiss defence minister Viola Amherd, who also holds the Swiss rotating presidency, said that she was sticking by army chief Thomas Süssli after facing criticism over management of the army budget.
Amherd and Süssli agree on closing the emerging “capability gaps” in the army as quickly as possible, said Amherd in an interview with the German-language paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung published on Saturday. “But we have a different focus. His job is to look after the army and security. I have to take an overall view.”
Gaps in the army’s network systems can’t be completely avoided, said Amherd. “This means that there will inevitably be temporary gaps when the old systems come to the end of their life and we have not yet been able to procure the new ones due to a lack of funds,” said the defence minister. “It will be important for us to be able to procure a certain number of the systems at any one time in order to at least continue the training and thus maintain the expertise of the troops.”
+ ‘Guns now, pay later’ plan for cash-strapped Swiss army
Amherd and Süssli have recently come under criticism. At the end of January, Swiss public television, SRF, reported on an internal administrative document. It showed the Swiss Armed Forces will lack CHF1.4 billion ($1.6 billion) by the end of 2025 to pay for armament purchases that have already been made.
The following day, army chief Süssli put the initial situation into perspective, saying the army doesn’t have a billion-franc shortfall, but a liquidity bottleneck. Amherd countered that the army could pay its bills.
This led to a hearing before the House of Representatives’ Finance Committee last week. The committee came to the conclusion that the army did not have a financing problem, but a communications problem.
Translated from German by DeepL/jdp.
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