2023-09-15 19:58:41
Party leaders want to give in to pressure from the USA
Parliament might force the Federal Council to work more closely with Western states in tracking down Russian funds.
Is Switzerland doing enough to seek Russian funds? A man and a woman in St. Moritz.
Photo: Christian Beutler (Keystone)
After the ambassadors of the G-7 states met the Federal Council invited to join in the spring the discussion is now flaring up once more: The reason for this is that the National Council will vote on a motion from the St. Gallen Green Party Franziska Ryser in the middle of next week.
This wants to oblige the federal government to join: formally, the Federal Council would have to submit a corresponding law to parliament once more within two years. An acceptance by Parliament would also be seen as a clear request to the Federal Council to complete accession quickly.
The chances of acceptance have increased in recent days. First, Roman Studer, the new head of the bankers’ association, said on Wednesday in an interview with the NZZ: “From the bankers’ association’s perspective, I see few reasons once morest joining.” The Swiss banks are already consistently implementing the internationally coordinated sanctions. On the same day, FDP President Thierry Burkart agreed with him on SRF.
Economiesuisse is also in favor of it
Now Mitte President Gerhard Pfister explains to this editorial team: “Personally, I was always in favor of it. We will discuss this at the group meeting on Tuesday. I don’t want to prejudge the discussion.”
And Jan Atteslander, dossier manager at the economic umbrella organization Economiesuisse, says when asked: “Switzerland would not forgive itself for taking part in the G-7 task force.” The Social Democrats and the Green Liberals have been supporting the idea for a long time. The SVP is once morest it.
If the Center and FDP factions follow their party presidents, the bill would at least get through the National Council. However, it is unclear whether this will succeed: the preliminary foreign policy commission rejected the application last week. As SP representative Fabian Molina confirmed, almost all centrist and FDP members in the commission voted once morest the application.
The federal government sees no reason to join
Above all, it is uncertain whether the Council of States will agree: The Center and the FDP are significantly stronger there than in the National Council, but their parliamentarians there behave much more independently. It is quite conceivable that they will be guided more by the Federal Council’s arguments.
He rejects the motion. He justifies this by saying that Switzerland is already working very well with various international partners on sanctions policy. Switzerland has so far adopted all eleven sanctions packages from the European Union and is implementing them independently.
Switzerland has already frozen 7.5 billion francs from Russian citizens. That is significantly more than, for example, Italy, France or Germany have frozen. However, the cross-border financial center in Switzerland is also significantly larger than in neighboring countries.
Against this background, joining the task force was purely symbolic and with the purpose of countering pressure from abroad on Switzerland. But opponents also see risks: the SVP is worried that closer cooperation with the Americans might lead to data leakage.
Federal Council wants to change the law instead
The lack of participation in international oligarch task forces is a point of criticism, among others from the USA, with regard to Switzerland’s handling of the sanctions.
The Federal Council wants to address other points of criticism with one Reform of the Money Laundering Act which he sent out for consultation two weeks ago.
The most important change would be that lawyers, trustees and notaries would have to re-check where a customer’s money comes from if money laundering is suspected. So far they are not obliged to do this, which has given Switzerland poor marks in reviews by international organizations.
Another planned innovation is the creation of a so-called transparency register. Companies should now have to report who the beneficial owners are, i.e. who actually controls them. This is intended to make investigations easier for prosecutors – for example when hunting oligarchs.
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