70.2% of the Swiss electorate said no this Sunday in a referendum to a proposal that sought to reinforce and enshrine in the Constitution the country's traditional policy of neutrality.
The so-called Neutrality Initiative would have complicated the adoption of sanctions against states like Russia, but none of the 26 cantons of the Confederation has positioned itself in favor of the text. Participation in the consultation has reached 47%, according to various Swiss media reports.
The verdict from the polls indicates that the citizenry supports a more "nuanced" version of classic neutrality, noted the co-director of the polling firm gfs.bern, Lukas Golder, in statements to the public television SRF.
Thus, voters believe that Parliament and the federal Executive must retain "room for maneuver" to apply neutrality, instead of being rigidly tied to a definition set in the Magna Carta.
The initiative was driven by the sovereignist movement Pro Schweiz, close to the far right, and arose as a reaction to the debate opened after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the Swiss Government's support for EU sanctions against Moscow.
The text denounced that these punitive measures did not align with either Switzerland's national interests or international peace, demanding that they could not be approved unless backed by the UN Security Council.
It also defended a "perpetual and armed" neutrality that would have restricted military cooperation with alliances like NATO, allowing it only in the face of an imminent war situation.
The federal Constitution of 1848 enshrines the principle of neutrality, which has historically allowed Switzerland to establish itself as a reference international mediator.
On the same day, the electorate also rejected another initiative related to food security, which aimed to significantly increase the country's self-sufficiency in this area. 72.5% of voters expressed opposition to this proposal.