The Bürgenstock summit was a good operation for Switzerland. Everything went as planned in terms of logistics and security. At the diplomatic level, the observation is more nuanced, even if the conference made it possible to put Ukraine back in the spotlight, at least for a weekend, while all eyes were rather riveted on the situation in the Middle East these last months. The challenge now is to involve those who are absent in the process.
>> Listen to the full development in Forum:
Switzerland says it wants to continue to be involved. The head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Ignazio Cassis, insisted on Switzerland’s role as mediator. “I think it is entirely conceivable to use this dynamism to move forward (…) It takes will on both sides: from Ukraine and Russia, and also from the ‘big players’. So, we can do a lot of facilitation work (…) but we cannot make geopolitical decisions alone,” he said at Forum on Sunday evening.
Nicolas Bideau, head of communications for the DFAE, also says he is optimistic about this conference which had “several objectives”: the first was to “bring together as many people as possible”, the second to “create a consensus on the instructions”.
>> Listen to Nicolas Bideau’s comments in full in Forum:
The absence of certain Southern countries was compensated by the presence of others, according to him. We cannot therefore “speak of failure”. “We cannot speak of failure, we have launched a dynamic with relatively broad support from the international community,” said Nicolas Bideau in Forum.
And to specify that the concrete impact of this summit will depend on “our diplomatic efforts”. Ignazio Cassis visited China and India in January after Switzerland’s declaration to agree to organize a peace conference, “we are going to return to Beijing and New Delhi”, assured the head of communications of the FDFA.
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