• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Swiss lower house passes resolution on parliamentary ties with Taiwan

ROC Central News Agency

05/03/2023 10:00 PM

Brussels, May 3 (CNA) The National Council, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland, has passed a resolution calling for closer ties with Taiwan's Legislative Yuan.

The resolution, which the assembly passed on Tuesday, was initiated by the lower chamber's foreign policy committee in October 2022 and paves the way for the office of the committee chairmen of the National Council to deepen ties with Taiwan's Legislature and boost their cooperation to strengthen democracy and enhance regional peace.

The resolution also calls for facilitating economic, political, science and cultural exchanges between Taiwan and Switzerland.

The resolution was passed by 97 to 87 with eight lawmakers abstaining, and follows a similar resolution passed in September 2021 strengthen ties with Taiwan.

Swiss news outlet Tagesanzeiger described the passage of the latest Taiwan-friendly resolution as an "explosive" move as Switzerland does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

The newspaper said the resolution showed the National Council's intention to strengthen ties with Taiwan on its own, instead of securing the approval of the more conservative-leaning Council of States, the upper house of the Swiss parliament.

Fabian Molina, a co-chair of the Swiss-Taiwan parliamentary group and the resolution's sponsor, said Switzerland and Taiwan should lend support to each other as fellow democracies and not give ground to Chinese interference.

Molina led a five-member delegation to Taiwan in early February. The Swiss parliamentarians called for a peaceful resolution of cross-Taiwan Strait differences and the signing of a Swiss-Taiwan economic partnership agreement (EPA) during their meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).

Edith Graf-Litscher, a spokesperson for the committee chairmen's office of the National Council, said it was legitimate for the lower council to seek closer ties with Taiwan's Legislative Yuan and in line with Swiss foreign principles of pursuing peace and stability.

National Councilor Nicolas Walder, another co-chair of the Swiss-Taiwan parliamentary group, said the resolution was not intended to provoke Beijing but to show Switzerland's support for Taiwan.

Like Molina, Walder was also in the delegation to visit Taiwan in February. The Chinese embassy in Switzerland strongly protested the visit.

Franz Grüter, head of the foreign policy committee, who voted against the resolution, said the Chinese embassy had told him the resolution represented a move to abandon the "One China" policy of Switzerland by the National Council. Grüter warned his colleagues that it was a strong protest from China.

Both Hans-Peter Portmann and Thomas Aeschi, who also voted against the resolution, said foreign affairs should be handled by the government's Federal Council and that it was not appropriate to pass the resolution at a time of escalating tensions in global politics.

(By Tien Hsi-jui and Frances Huang)

Enditem/ASG