The Federal Council is urging voters to reject the initiative on neutrality launched by the Swiss People’s Party.
The foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis, says neutrality must be flexible and the only country that doesn’t consider Switzerland neutral is Russia.
The government also believes security is at risk unless there is some cooperation with NATO.
The initiative has collected 130,000 signatures so voters will make the final decision.
It lays out that Switzerland should never join a military organisation and only apply sanctions on a country if agreed by the UN.
But the Federal Council wants to have more freedom to determine actions and so is not coming up with a counter proposal which would also solidly define neutrality.
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