Pilet-Golaz and the Making of Swiss Foreign Policy: Some Remarks

Abstract

Following the publication of the Rapport Bonjour, several studies have been interested in the internal operations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This contribution highlights the relations of Pilet-Golaz - more precisely, the absence of relations - with most of its collaborators and in particular with the economy. Contacts with foreign diplomats were generally good, yet they only had weak exchanges with the government. Thus, at a time when the external economy had a special political significance and portion of Swiss companies made great profits from war, Switzerland had a Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was barely interested in this dimension of external relations. Some of the current difficulties are the cost of this negligence.