Switzerland has supported the arming of Russia. It is heavily in debt to Ukraine.
Russia’s war against Ukraine signifies the death of thousands of people and causes severe damage in Ukraine. The cost of reconstruction was estimated to be 750 billion Francs at the end of 2022. Putin’s government is destroying Ukraine with a war machinery that has been massively fed by Switzerland – and is continuously fed by it. Putin could barely finance the war without the billions and billions from commodity trading, the oligarchs and banks. Furthermore, his bombers could not start without Swiss Dual-Use-Goods.
KGB-Mafia-Capitalism
Ukraine and other Eastern European neighboring countries, but also the U.S., are right when they demand from Switzerland to use a part of the approximately 200 billion of assets that, oligarchs have invested in Switzerland, for the reconstruction of Ukraine. Yet, it is not only the bourgeois references to sacrosanct property rights that are fundamentally questionable. The oligarchs owe their wealth to a system, which Catherine Belton calls “KGB-Mafia-Capitalism” in her 700-page long doorstopper “Putins Netz” (Haper Collins 2020).
Moreover, the parked reserves of the Russian central bank in Switzerland amounting to 10 billion francs should not be forgotten. Additionally, substantial amounts can be expected from the confederation, the cantons and the municipalities in which “economic Putinism” has been spread the most.
Excess Profit – Tax from Commodity Multinationals
A less discussed source for reconstruction support is the taxation of excess profits caused by the war. The scarcity of energy resources like gas, oil and coal have enabled massive profits for commodity and energy companies. Zug-based Glencore, for example, posted an excess profit of $7 billion in the first half of 2022 compared to the entire previous year.
The Geneva-based Trafigura, Gunvor and Vitol made nine billion dollar in the first half of 2022 and thereby also more excess than in the year 2021 with eight billion. Overall, all profit increases by those profiting from the war in Switzerland were approximately around 50 billion francs in the last year.
A mechanism to work against this, is already known from the two World Wars: the Windfall Profit Tax was introduced by the United States. Windfall profits based on wartime events were skimmed off by up to 95 percent. Last year a number of countries like Belgium, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and Great Britain introduced or announced this special tax. In Switzerland, Balthasar Glättli (Green Party) submitted a parliamentary initiative for its creation. However, the same commoners which had supported the armament of Russia directly or indirectly opposed it.
This kind of tax which could bring in billions could additionally be used to absorb the increase in energy prices for households and to support the expansion of climate protection. Thereby, we could combine solidarity, a social component in domestic policies and climate protection.