Swiss lower house backs power to independently impose sanctions
ZURICH (Reuters) – Switzerland’s decrease home on Thursday backed authorized modifications that can enable the often impartial nation to impose sanctions independently of different nations or worldwide teams on individuals or entities which have violated worldwide humanitarian regulation.
The decrease chamber of Switzerland’s parliament voted in favour of a change to the so-called embargo regulation in a debate dominated by the subject of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine.
Presently, Switzerland can solely undertake sanctions imposed by the United Nations (UN), the Organisation for Safety and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) or huge buying and selling companions just like the European Union (EU).
Future stand-alone sanctions may very well be directed towards individuals or entities similar to corporations which might be linked to critical violations of worldwide humanitarian regulation or related crimes.
Centre and left-wing events had been in favour of the thought of impartial sanctions, whereas the right-wing Swiss individuals’s occasion opposed them. The higher home must overview the proposal.
Some say Switzerland’s rigorously nurtured custom of not taking sides has helped it prosper peacefully and keep a particular function as middleman through the years.
The transfer to revise the regulation started nicely earlier than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however the significance of impartial sanctions got here into focus when Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko ceded possession of Switzerland-based fertiliser group EuroChem Group AG and of Russia-based coal producer SUEK AO to his spouse on March 8, the day earlier than he was sanctioned by the European Union.
Melnichenko’s spouse, Aleksandra Melnichenko, has since been sanctioned by the EU however has contested the sanctions. Her identify didn’t seem on the Swiss sanctions listing on Thursday.
Additionally on Thursday, Switzerland’s decrease home rejected the creation of a taskforce for the freezing of Russian and Belarusian oligarchs’ belongings.
(Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz; Modifying by Hugh Lawson)
