Published: April 17th, 2018

Mr. Freysinger, what do you think about perspectives of «Skripal’s case» for relationship between Russia und European Union?

They have no proofs of the Russian participation in that. For example, my country – Switzerland – has not reacted as Amerika wanted, like other 30 nations did. We are analyzing this situation, we need more proofs. I don’t see the reasons why Russia should have done something like that. If there is a crime, there should be some benefit of this crime. Russia has nothing to expect from this crime. That means that somebody else will have the benefit. It’s a fake! It’s only used to put pressure on Russia like they did with the sanctions. It will come down. However, Russia should be steadfast and at the same time, Russia should have an elegant diplomatic position, as Putin does, especially in Syria.

After the war in Libya Russians and Chinese have realized they had been blackballed. Therefore, they didn’t allow it to happen again in Syria because this country is more important for Russia.

How to get out of this? I think Russia does it right. It is trying now to create strong links with China (the Silk Road), Iran, India; try to build a power against NATO and the western countries.

Putin would like, I think, to begin a dialogue with the American president. Trump is trapped in a very uncomfortable situation. He doesn’t want to be in conflict with Russia. But his own system is against him. Therefore, he has to be very clever. All these talking about Russian influence on American election – it’s only to forbid Trump to cooperate with Putin. Because if he does, congressmen and other politicians would say – «We told you! The Russians have been interfering in the elections. They helped him!» It’s only for that – to prevent this rapprochement, that the election-case has been brought forth. But it would be a good thing for entire world if Russians and Americans found a way to live in friendship together.

I notice that the behavior of Russia is by no means an aggressive behavior. Don’t forget that the soviet system was not born in the Russian mind. It was imported from the West.

Russia had, except during the communist era, always an excellent relationship with the West. In addition, Russia has played a very important role, when Switzerland was created as an independent country at the Vienna congress in 1815.

In my opinion, Russia has never been an enemy for Europe like Nazi Germany. Nowadays, Russia has a role to play on a planetary level. Technologically (on a military point of view) I think the Russians have a little advantage over the Americans now, even if their military budget is far lower.

The most important for Russia is to save itself economically. Because the only military sector can’t be financed without a flourishing economy. Russia has to find another way to escape this pressure from the western world, trying to find some partners in the West, which are open to have straight connections with Russia.

Now the West is shooting itself in the foot because of the sanctions which hurt their own economy.

May be Russia should have some mediator in this conflict with the western countries? Can Switzerland or your People’s Party be a mediator such like this?

Switzerland has always offered his good services, trying to be a link between conflict parties. Why not? There are political parties in Western Europe which are interested in a good relationship with Russia. Nevertheless, for the moment the power is in the hands of a group of people, which want to destroy every limit or frontier and create a big global power under the leadership of the United States. That is not a sustainable system. Because America has lead most of the wars in the world for the last 20 years. They call themselves «policemen of the world order» and create a chaos everywhere. The only hope we have is not to become slaves of the American way of live. However, generally this is not a good perspective for the future. It’s a materialistic view of things. It’s not what I’m convinced of. I advocate a rather spiritual way of handling the world and human life, which I find in modern Russia.

Considering my party, it could be a kind of mediator. The Swiss people’s party is the strongest party in Switzerland. As I feel it, most of his members sustain a normalized relationship with Russia. Other parties have begun to shift now because they begin to understand that pressure on Russia is not clever, not rational.

We fear the Americans because of the pressures on our banking system, which is important for our small country which plays an important financial role. We have had a lot of pressure from the Americans over the last 20 years. They behave like enemies, because they want to destroy our position as a big financial center. In Switzerland, we once managed a third of the private assets in the world. Americans wanted this market for themselves. They put pressure on us. It was and still is enormous. Our banks had to pay huge amounts of money. Russia, on the other hand, didn’t attack us, didn’t put pressure on us. For my country, the danger is rather the USA than Russia. I believe that fear is not a good base for a healthy policy. Now the situation in Switzerland is changing. We understand the real economic interests of Switzerland. Russia is a natural partner of Western Europe. We can do many useful things together. But the USA fear that. And that’s the reason why they created the situation in Ukraine, sanctions and other problems. They try to create russophobia in the whole world. That all has only one aim: to create a new wall between Russia and, especially, Germany. If they would collaborate, they could create an enormous economic power, which would be bigger than the American economy.

Oskar Freysinger, Vice-President of the Swiss People's Party, former Member at the National Council of Switzerland.

Source: Politcom.ru