The options the vote kept open
Swiss voters rejected a stricter constitutional definition of neutrality by 70.2 per cent, and the proposal failed in every canton. Bern therefore retains the legal room to join EU sanctions on Russia and cooperate with NATO without the proposed constitutional ban.[1]
Pro Schweiz’s proposal would have constrained sanctions against belligerents without a UN Security Council mandate and limited military-alliance cooperation except in imminent war. Both clauses directly touched the choices of a country that adopted EU sanctions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[1]
Discretion stays with Bern
The result creates no new sanctions agreement or security partnership. It preserves the government’s and parliament’s discretion over how neutrality is applied. It is an institutional choice about who retains the authority to decide, rather than a decision to join an alliance.[1]
A separate November vote on easing weapons export rules offers the next institutional test. Today’s result does not settle that proposal. What changed is precise: voters declined to impose a constitutional restraint on the government’s existing neutrality choices.[1]