{"id":13584,"date":"2014-03-27T09:22:55","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T09:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13584"},"modified":"2014-03-27T09:22:55","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T09:22:55","slug":"swiss-decide-against-russian-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13584","title":{"rendered":"Swiss decide against Russian sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13585\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13585\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/burkhalter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13585\" alt=\"Didier Burkhalter\" src=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/burkhalter-300x160.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"160\" srcset=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/burkhalter-300x160.jpg 300w, https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/burkhalter.jpg 468w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13585\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Didier Burkhalter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Swiss federal government on Wednesday decided not to impose sanctions against Russia for its seizure of Crimea, claiming it wanted to find a &#8220;balance&#8221; between international law and Switzerland&#8217;s interests.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;The position of our country is independent of the UN,&#8221; Swiss president Didier Burkhalter told a press conference in Bern, saying Switzerland can only use sanctions when they are based upon &#8220;international law and the interests of the Swiss&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And in this case the rights and the interests play a role&#8230; we need to find a balance,&#8221; he added, as well as noting that Russian interests in Switzerland were &#8220;very large&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The federal council has noted the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Burkhalter said some sanctions imposed by the EU would apply to Switzerland, including a ban on the freedom of movement of some Russian nationals as Switzerland is a member of the Schengen group of European countries, which allow passport-free movement between them.<\/p>\n<p>Burkhalter, who is also the country&#8217;s foreign minister, said Switzerland would not allow itself to be used in the conflict.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The majority of Russian gas and petrol is traded in Geneva, and Switzerland is an increasingly popular destination for Russia&#8217;s wealthy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Source: The Local<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Swiss federal government on Wednesday decided not to impose sanctions against Russia for its seizure of Crimea, claiming it wanted to find a &#8220;balance&#8221; between international law and Switzerland&#8217;s interests. &#8220;The position of our country is independent of the UN,&#8221; Swiss president Didier Burkhalter told a press conference in Bern, saying Switzerland can only &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13584\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Swiss decide against Russian sanctions&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8472,8735,66,1061,8736,653],"class_list":["post-13584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-crimea","tag-didier-burkhalter","tag-russia","tag-sanctions","tag-schengen","tag-switzerland"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/burkhalter.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13586,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584\/revisions\/13586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}