Swiss parliament agrees to ease war materiel exports and re-exports

Parliament relaxes the law on war material Keystone-SDA

The proposal to facilitate not only the export of war materiel but also its re-export is underway. On Thursday, the Senate agreed with the House of Representatives on the final points. The left has already announced a referendum.

At Parliament’s request, the governing Federal Council proposed a reform that would give it a time-limited power to deviate from the authorisation criteria in exceptional cases. Not only did Parliament accept this derogation, it went even further.

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It will be possible to authorise a priori applications from States whose export regime is similar to that of Switzerland, even if these countries are involved in an armed conflict. The Federal Council will be able to refuse such requests.

The two chambers also approved another relaxation on the issue of re-exporting arms to a third country. They were in agreement on the substance, but had each proposed a different version of the relaxation. The Senate eventually gave in to the House of Representatives’ version.

Adapted from French by DeepL/ac

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