“NATO may have been fatal to Viola Amherd”

For political scientist René Knüsel, Viola Amherd “took risks” by advocating an increased rapprochement between Switzerland and NATO. And then, the Federal Councilor perhaps no longer had the energy necessary to lead the Department of Defense.

Viola Amherd throws in the towel. How do you explain this decision?
René Knüsel: The UDC demanded his resignation. This request surely factors into his decision to leave the Federal Council. Calls for resignation are part of the political game. That said, I do not see any objective reasons for Ms. Amherd to leave the Federal Council and the Department of Defense (DDPS), today more than yesterday. He is accused of malfunctions, the drones purchased from Israel and still not operational, among other things, but malfunctions, there have always been in the Swiss army. However, the Mirage affair in the 1960s forced the head of what was then called the Federal Military Department, Paul Chaudet, to resign.

Viola Amherd didn’t have it easy…
The DDPS is a difficult department to manage. Since the Federal Council decided to increase the military budget following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the head of the DDPS has faced the difficulty of rethinking the defense tool.

René Knüsel, honorary professor in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Lausanne.Image: unil

Did she have all the cards to play her game?
It is in fact rather on this side that we must look for the reasons for his resignation. The Federal Council and Parliament want a different armed defense. Sure, but did Ms. Amherd have the necessary political support? Did it have the operational support, that of the army general staff, called upon to implement the reorientation of the defense tool?

Speaking of reorientation, the increased rapprochement of Switzerland with NATO, recommended in a report expressly requested by Viola Amherd, the broad outlines of which were leaked to the press last August, was it not fatal to the Minister of Defense? The UDC, supported by the socialists, considered that this was a betrayal of neutrality.
On this occasion, Ms. Amherd took a direction that did not conform to the doctrine of neutrality, even if, in fact, Switzerland is already linked in certain aspects to NATO, to the satisfaction, it seems, of the military. Except that it is the politician who decides how far it is possible to go in international cooperation. For the UDC and the PS, each citing their own reasons, this increased rapprochement was not desirable.

The UDC has released a seemingly unstoppable card, the one which says that Switzerland has always managed to be neutral since 1291, something which, moreover, is completely false. The SVP claimed that Ms Amherd was selling Switzerland to NATO.

We can also think that the resignation of Viola Amherd obeys, tactically, the wish of the supporters of an increased rapprochement with NATO, who perhaps believe that the minister was too worn out to lead this fight.
Why not. At the same time, the supporters of a membership that does not say its name in NATO know that they had an ally in Ms. Amherd. There are not many in the Federal Council, nor perhaps among parliamentarians, who, like her, would take the political risk of opening the way to strengthened collaboration with the Atlantic Alliance. She volunteered on this issue, which surprised me a little.

For what?
Because his party, The Center, is not the most represented in Parliament. We must still be able to build a majority around a defense project. Neutrality is an extremely delicate subject. Neutrality has been put to the test with Switzerland’s resumption of European Union sanctions against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. In any case, to lead the DDPS, we need a person who has the will to lead this department in one direction or another. And the energy to do it.

Is the talk of rapprochement with NATO temporarily doomed?
What is certain is that the question of rapprochement with NATO will be central and present in the minds of each voter of the Federal Assembly when electing the man or woman who will succeed Viola Amherd.

In the affair of the resignation of Viola Amherd, we say to ourselves that we were not far from a shift of Switzerland into NATO, but that the Orthodox ultimately won, a bit like in the regimes which we think are on the verge of falling and which ultimately hold their ground.
There is undoubtedly that. It appears that the position of Minister of Defense is ultimately quite tricky. It is for this reason that the person who will succeed Viola Amherd at the DDPS will probably not be one of the current members of the Federal Council. I don’t see Guy Parmelin coming back or Albert Rösti sticking with it.

Would Gerhard Pfister, who chairs the Center until June, have any chance of succeeding Viola Amherd?
To the extent that it is difficult to see the seat of Ms. Amherd, herself a centrist, escaping the Center, Gerhard Pfister of course has his chances.

With these few words, Viola Amherd resigns from the Federal Council ????

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