Switzerland will resell 25 Leopard 2 tanks to Germany

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignacio Cassis said on Sunday that his country’s government will soon formulate its position on the resale of 25 Leopard tanks to the German manufacturer that had produced them.

Cassis said in an interview with the Swiss Sonnetag Zeitung newspaper that “the Leopard tanks were withdrawn from service some time ago”.

The Swiss Foreign Minister indicated that “Parliament will undoubtedly take an important decision in this regard, and the Federal Council (the Swiss government) hasn’t taken any position yet, and it will consider this issue in the near future”.

Cassis stressed that his government is closely following the debate in Parliament on the proposal to resell 96 Leopard 2 tanks to Germany, but has not held discussions on this initiative.

Last March, the Security Policy Committee of the Swiss National Council (parliament) agreed to withdraw 25 tanks (Leopard 2) from combat service, which creates conditions for resale to the German manufacturer.

Earlier, spokesman for the Swiss Federal Ministry of Defense, Lorenz Frischknecht, said that his country had received a request from Berlin to purchase Leopard 2 tanks, but reselling them requires formal withdrawal from service by a decision of Parliament, and no such decision has been taken.

Earlier, a report in the American New York Times spoke of the difficulty experienced by the countries of the European continent in securing German Leopard tanks of sufficient quantity and appropriate quality, in order to send them to the battlefield in Ukraine.