Umstrittene Schweizer Sicherheitspolitik ... - ETH Zürich

The Graduate Institute
Krause Keith: Let me give you an example, Mr Greminger, to illustrate
the point I tried to make: I did learn that one individual still is, or at
least was, in Burundi. There is also one foreign diplomat who is based
in Bujumbura but is not actually linked organically to the development
cooperation office. Switzerland has there one military person and one
foreign affairs person, but Switzerland does not have there a strong presence
with regard to the cooperation office. Therefore, at the minimum
you should think about how those people might collaborate to increase
the profile of the activities they are undertaking, if Burundi were, for
whatever reason, to become a priority. Compared to what the Dutch
and the Belgians were doing there, it is a relatively small engagement. So
you should either scale it up or scale it down. The current configuration
seems to be a bit ad hoc; it might even be accidental that there is a military
person and a diplomat, although I hope it is not. In any way, with
the current configuration it is very hard to show the flag consistently.
With regard to the question concerning a geographic set of interests
I would like to say: There is a natural interest for East Central Europe,
the Balkans, and the area a little bit further east, which has been reflected
in the way Switzerland has engaged with Partnership for Peace. A similar
logic applies to the Caucasus and to North Africa, for reasons that have to
do with the same kind of migration flows we see in neighbouring countries
and with the increased mobility of individuals within Europe. Those are
not always a source of threat, but they are a potential source of engagement.
I do not see a large strategic interest in some other parts of the
world; I do not think you have ever deployed anybody in South America.
However, a geographic logic is only going to get you so far with cooperation,
partly because the reliance on multilateral bodies, in particular
the United Nations, which operates globally, means that there may be
requests to contribute to an initiative that is not in one of those geographic
zones. It would be best if such requests were directed to areas that Switzerland
felt it had a special expertise on. I think Aceh is an example. After the
signing of the peace agreement, they were calling around to find experts
for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR). They also
called Berne, to find out if Switzerland had DDR-experts. Perhaps that is
an area of interest, or security sector reform, where you have a huge pool
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