SWITZERLAND’S neutrality, a principle of the its foreign policy for over 500 years, could be ditched following a government-commissioned report advocating co-operation with the US-led Nato war alliance.

A committee of “experts” was appointed by Defence & Security Minister Viola Amherd, who also chairs the country’s seven-member federal presidency this year. Its report, published on Thursday, has been described as a “bombshell” for advocating military co-operation with other states for the first time since 1515.

The authors cited Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a reason to reconsider Switzerland’s traditional stance, though that was maintained through far larger conflicts including both world wars.

Both Sweden and Finland have abandoned their long-standing neutrality in favour of Nato membership in light of the Ukraine war, though neither was neutral for nearly as long as Switzerland has been.

Co-operation with Nato should “be deepened with a view to achieving a common defence capability,” it advises, while “the neutrality policy must be revised, more focused on its security function and applied more flexibly.” Making a distinction between “aggressor and victim” would allow Switzerland to co-ordinate foreign policy better with Nato and the European Union, it argues.

The authors are also concerned that Switzerland’s ban on supplying weaponry to countries at war lies behind a 27 per cent fall in arms sales last year, since many European states are now sending weapons to Ukraine, complicating the export of armaments with Swiss components. These provisions should be relaxed to boost the arms industry, it recommends, saying that “the re-export ban must be lifted.”

Critics have accused Ms Amherd of picking a committee and remit that would inevitably recommend a more warlike posture. Green MP Marionna Schlatter branded the committee  a “farce,” with 16 of its 22 members picked by the defence minister. 

Swiss newspaper Blick’s political editor Daniel Ballmer reported criticisms that “neutrality sceptics, Nato sympathisers and EU supporters” had been deliberately selected for the panel.

The National Council, as the lower house of the federal parliament is called, has pushed back against Ms Amherd’s militarism, recently voting that Switzerland may not participate in any military exercises to train for the “alliance scenario” (a war involving Nato), but the new report places the issue back at the forefront of Swiss politics.