Neutrality is a difficult path, insofar as it requires a neutral country to consider itself accountable for the perceptions it generates among others. Even if, originally, one is neutral for one's own sake, one is first and foremost neutral for others, and through the recognition of others. A neutrality that lost sight of the need for such recognition would come close to losing its very soul.
Sovereignty is asserted, independence is expressed, neutrality is recognised.
The doubts voiced in recent years concerning Swiss neutrality will not disappear tomorrow, as if by magic, with the wave of a wand following the rejection of an initiative.
One only had to follow the campaign surrounding this initiative to observe a shared attachment to neutrality, whether one supported YES or NO. The disagreement was not about neutrality itself, but about the means of making it understood and bringing it to life.
Supporters of YES expected that enshrining a strict definition in the Constitution would provide a form of guarantee, a sense of security. Supporters of NO considered such a definition unnecessary, and even dangerous — too cumbersome for those who would have to uphold neutrality in difficult times.
In an address at the Société de Lecture on 7 September 2026, I expressed reservations about this belief in the virtue of restrictive definitions. It is a very old idea, inherited from Roman law, that definitions are perilous because they are a source of rigidity. In Rome, the flexible, case-by-case approach of the judge was preferred to the mere formulation of a rule.
A constitution, however well written, does not predetermine the policies pursued under it, or at least those that cannot disregard it.
If, therefore, a neutral country — and Switzerland is the neutral country par excellence — must consider itself accountable for the perceptions it generates among its close neighbours as well as its more distant interlocutors, it must also provide, if I may be permitted this colloquial expression, a genuine after-sales service.
In other words, if Switzerland still values its neutrality, it must concern itself, today more than ever, with providing the international community with a genuine user's guide to its neutrality.
Yet neutrality only has meaning if it constitutes a promise of predictability. Its credibility depends upon it.
In an age such as ours, which prides itself on the benefits of strategic ambiguity, neutrality replies: With me, you know in advance what to expect.
To be neutral is to refuse, as a matter of principle, to conceal one's true intentions.
This predictability is a strength, and I would even be tempted to say, an expectation.
The world expects nothing from the clamour of confused minds; it expects, if not everything, then at least a great deal, from those who bring calm and who declare that they will remain faithful to their highest promises.
27 September 2026
