Swiss defense companies are massively fleeing the country due to the neutrality law — Bloomberg
Kyiv • UNN
Due to legislative restrictions related to neutrality, Swiss defense companies are massively moving production outside the country. Switzerland risks losing lucrative contracts.
Swiss defense companies are massively moving production outside the country due to legislative restrictions related to neutrality. This was reported by Bloomberg, writes UNN.
Details
According to Bloomberg, one of the Swiss entrepreneurs, Peter Huber, is moving most of his defense business to Portugal in order to avoid the Swiss law that prohibits sending locally produced weapons to conflict zones. At the same time, the entrepreneur maintains competitiveness in the European market. Due to this step, his company lost half of its 120 jobs in Swiss Boudry.
Defense industry clients only placed new orders with us if we could guarantee that our products were not manufactured in Switzerland
Even despite the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Switzerland, being neutral, continued to adhere to strict rules on arms exports. This threatened a small but important industry.
Now Switzerland has been criticized for blocking the supply of Swiss weapons to Ukraine, and risks losing lucrative contracts amid the rearmament of European countries.
Switzerland's military industry generates just over 0.2% of the country's output and about 14,000 jobs. However, the country's "armed neutrality" has increased the importance of the sector, given that Swiss law requires support for industrial capacity "adapted to the requirements of national defense."
Also, Swedish law does not allow governments of other countries to re-export weapons systems with more than 50% of the value of Swiss-made components. In addition, the parliament overturned a clause that allowed the Swiss government to grant exemptions - this happened at the end of 2021, a few months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Due to Switzerland's position against the re-export of weapons to Ukraine, Swiss arms manufacturers are avoided almost all over Europe, from Amsterdam to Berlin, Bloomberg reports.
