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Excellencies
Ladies and gentlemen
Dear friends

It is an honour for me to address you all at this 4th gathering of the European Political Community. Switzerland values the EPC as a space for Europe, defined by geography and based on a common idea of what is Europe, to come together.

The EPC is valuable as a platform to have open, inclusive and frank discussions about the challenges we face.

These challenges are of unprecedented complexity. We need to address them together as Europeans.

I thank Prime Minister Starmer for the kind invitation to share my impressions of the Summit on Peace in Ukraine that Switzerland hosted a month ago.

With the summit, we aimed to address the most pressing challenge our continent faces.

Looking back, I believe it is fair to say that we achieved what we had aspired for. For the first time, voices from all corners of the globe came together at the highest level to talk about how to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

The Bürgenstock summit represents the only initiative that enjoys broad support across all continents. More than one hundred countries and international organisations joined the discussions.

This global support is essential in order to take substantial steps towards a just and lasting peace. Other peace plans don’t enjoy the same kind of endorsement. One reason may be that the UN charter as the central foundation for a future peace is missing in some of those plans.

Thanks to this broad support and the concrete propositions we discussed in Switzerland, we managed to lay the foundations for the path towards a potential peace process.

I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of you for your tireless efforts to mobilize for the summit and for your active contributions prior to and during the conference. Your support played a central role in building this foundation and the momentum the summit was able to generate.

I thank the UK, the EU, and in particular the staff of the Council presidency, the Commission and the External Action Service and also countless others who are present here today for the excellent cooperation.

Despite the different points of view that were shared on the Bürgenstock, we managed to agree on a common vision.
This vision is summed up in the Bürgenstock Communiqué, which has been signed by 87 countries so far. Additional countries continue to sign the Communiqué, even some of which were not present at the summit.

This text can provide a basis on which further discussions can take place. With the summit we managed to take a first step on the challenging path ahead towards a peace process.

We are currently discussing with Ukraine and key partners what the next steps could look like.

And we are working to use and sustain the momentum to elaborate such concrete steps, including on the issues identified in the Bürgenstock Communiqué:

•    Firstly, any use of nuclear energy and nuclear installations must be safe, secured, safeguarded and environmentally sound.

•    Secondly, food security must not be weaponised in any way. Attacks on merchant ships in ports and along the entire route, as well as against civilian ports and civilian port infrastructure, are unacceptable.

•    Thirdly, all prisoners of war must be released. All deported and unlawfully displaced Ukrainian children, and all other Ukrainian civilians who were unlawfully detained, must be returned to Ukraine.

What is already clear is that the active engagement and support of our European friends – be they the EU, its Member States or our other European partners here today, remain crucial.

Switzerland welcomes the follow-up conferences on the three issues, that President Zelenskyy just announced, this is exactly what we had worked and hoped for.

Switzerland is ready to continue to play an active role in this process. We will particularly focus on strengthening the bridges that we have been able to build to the Global South and China.

We have been getting very positive feedbacks on the Summit even from colleagues in the Global South who have so far refrained from signing the Bürgenstock Communiqué. It is now essential to reach out to them, take their concerns into account, and motivate them to join the Bürgenstock Communiqué.

I count on your support in this outreach endeavour and I very much look forward to continuing our close cooperation with all of you, including with Ukraine, as European partners standing together in solidarity. Thank you very much.

Speech by President Viola Amherd at fourth meeting of the European Political Community