Swiss voters will be asked to decide whether the country should accede to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, according to the government.
© Schweiz GSAO Einreichung Atomwaffenverbots-Initiative
On 23 December 2025, The Alliance for a Nuclear Weapons Ban submitted 135,000 signatures to the Federal Chancellery, enough to trigger a nationwide vote. The initiative is backed by the Socialist Party, the Greens, the Evangelical People’s Party and a range of civil-society groups, including the Group for a Switzerland without an Army (GSoA), Greenpeace, Terre des Hommes and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
The signatures, said Noemi Buzzi of GSoA, send a strong signal for disarmament at a time when nuclear threats are again gaining political currency. Lisa Mazzone, president of the Greens, argued that prohibition and abolition are the only credible response to nuclear weapons.
The treaty, which entered into force in 2021, imposes a sweeping ban on nuclear weapons. It outlaws their use and threat of use, as well as production, stockpiling, acquisition, possession, deployment, transfer, testing and assistance to such activities. None of the nuclear-armed states — America, Russia, China, France, Britain, Pakistan, India, Israel or North Korea — has joined, nor have states that rely on nuclear deterrence. Germany, for example, hosts around 20 American nuclear weapons.
The initiative committee frames Swiss accession as a matter of humanitarian responsibility. Joining the treaty is long overdue, said Fabian Molina, a Socialist Party member of the National Council from Zurich. Switzerland’s credibility, he argued, suffers if it retreats on nuclear disarmament; the Federal Council, he said, has ignored a parliamentary mandate for several years.
In March 2024 the Federal Council again declined to sign the treaty. It said the instrument’s practical effect would be limited, given that most Western and European states do not recognise it, and that Switzerland could more effectively promote disarmament within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — which it stressed is distinct from the prohibition treaty.
Worldwide, 99 states have signed or ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. No NATO member has joined. Austria and Ireland, which are not part of NATO’s nuclear arrangements, have done so.
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