“There is no principle of separation of powers in the EU.”

“There is no principle of separation of powers in the EU.”

Interview with Jacques Baud*

Current Affairs in Focus You are on the EU sanctions list. How did you find out about this?

Jacques Baud On December 12 at 8:45 a.m., Sylvain Besson, a journalist at Tamedia, called me and asked if I knew that I was on an EU sanctions list that was to be officially published on December 15. He told me that this information came from an article by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).¹

I immediately called our embassy in Brussels, which is responsible for relations between Switzerland and the EU, to clarify whether the information from RFE/RL was correct. I did not receive a response and finally learned on December 15, the day the sanctions were published, that the information was correct. In fact, the EU keeps these sanctions lists secret until the day they are published to prevent the sanctioned individuals from transferring funds. The fact that my name and the name of a French citizen with dual citizenship living in Moscow appeared on December 12 was probably an information leak.

Was there an official communication from the EU about this outrageous incident?

No, to date I have not received any official communication from the EU, from Belgium, where I live, or from Switzerland. The publication of the list of sanctioned persons on the website of the Council of the European Union on December 15 is considered notification. After my various appearances in the Swiss media on December 22 and 23, the FDFA contacted me in the context of consular protection. However, my case is a special case and does not fall under consular protection.

On January 10, I received the first call from the FDFA in Bern, informing me about the situation and the measures taken by Switzerland. I now know that on January 9, Switzerland approached the EU to protest against the lack of due process in imposing these sanctions and the violation of my freedom of expression and thought, reminding them that Russian media outlets such as RT and Sputnik are not banned in Switzerland.

Of course, the publication of the sanctions on December 15, immediately followed by the end-of-year holidays and the sluggishness of the authorities, contributed to making my situation even more problematic.

How should the allegations against you be assessed?

At this point, one month after the sanctions came into force, I am still not informed of the details of the allegations against me. The “allegations” listed in the December 15 sanctions list are extremely vague, and none of them constitute a violation of national or international laws or regulations.

It must be emphasized here that these sanctions are not a judicial but a political measure. I have not broken any law, and no court has judged me. Consequently, there was no trial, I was not given any reasons before the sanctions were imposed, I had no opportunity to defend myself, I had no opportunity to consult a lawyer and explain my position before the sanction was imposed.

If the penalty had been the death penalty, I would have had no opportunity to challenge it before it was carried out. This analogy may seem somewhat extreme, but it is factually correct, since extrajudicial executions work on exactly the same principle. It is sufficient to say that a person poses a threat to security in order to sentence them without a court order. The United States and France already practice this approach, as I have described in detail in my books.

It is exactly the same logic as state terrorism, whose goal is to strengthen political power. In Europe, we are not there yet, but the logic and political mechanisms that lead there are already in place.

It is interesting to note that the history of democracy is marked by the concept of “habeas corpus,” which means that no one can be punished without a trial.

One might think that this concept is clear in the 21st century, but not in Belgium. In the newspaper Le Soir, Frédéric Dopagne, a Belgian professor of international law who strongly reminds us of the 1930s, does not see this as a violation of the rule of law, since I can now appeal the punishment! In fact, he perfectly illustrates the incompetence of pseudo-intellectuals who have completely misunderstood the concept of democracy and place ideology above the law.

The rule of law means that the functioning of the state is governed by the law. It is not politics that determines the application of the law, but the law that determines the application of politics. In my case, the decision on sanctions was taken by the Council of Foreign Ministers of the European Union (Council). But as we are increasingly seeing, we do not have a “law-based” international system, but a “rule-based” one. That is exactly what we have here.

Our Belgian lawyer did not understand this at all. In a normal trial, there is an indictment, the reasons are presented to you, you can state your case, and a lawyer ensures that everything is done within the framework of the law. Then there is a judge who evaluates the positions of all parties involved and then passes a judgment, which you can appeal. In my case, the process starts at the end: you start with a sanction determined by politicians, then you can appeal.

But here, too, the procedure does not comply with the law. In a court case, a judicial authority judges and sentences you. In my case, a political authority sentences me, and the appeal is handled by a judicial structure that has no authority over the political authority. Since the Council operates within the EU executive, it has both a legislative and an executive function. In other words, there is no principle of separation of powers as there is in Switzerland, for example. Without going into detail, this means that the Council’s indictment can be changed during the proceedings. Put simply, the Council can change the charges at any time.

The EU under Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas is a structure that functions like the regime of Louis XIV in France. The king decides on your guilt, and you can try to explain to him that his decision is wrong, but he can change the charges if he feels like it. Alternatively, one could say that the EU functions like the former USSR.

In which areas of your private life are you restricted, and what are you prohibited from doing?

I was convicted on the basis of foreign policy measures. That is why I am not allowed to enter the EU. The problem is that I live in the EU. In this situation, the law states that I am not allowed to move within the EU. More specifically, I am not allowed to cross any borders. This means that I am not allowed to return to Switzerland. I can apply for an entry permit for Switzerland, but then I would no longer be able to return home.

The other measure is that all my bank accounts in the EU are frozen. This means that for a month now, I have had no access to funds to pay for my groceries, my electricity bills, and so on.

My lawyers have filed a request for “humanitarian exemptions” that would allow me to access my money simply to live. But for a month now, the Belgian authorities responsible for these permits have still not responded.

We live in a hyper-bureaucratic system where the individual disappears behind an administrative machine of anonymous officials.

How have you “survived” under these circumstances since the sanctions were imposed?

I have received a lot of support from people in my neighborhood, from people who have brought me food. These were very touching gestures from all walks of life. People, friends, who brought me food at Christmas and since then. I can only live thanks to the help of people around me. The advantage of this is that you can see who your true friends are.

Swiss people who had food delivered to my home by ordering it from Switzerland. However, this was difficult because as soon as they gave my phone number, the transaction was blocked. This is because the sanctions prohibit anyone from providing me with “resources,” as they could otherwise be sanctioned or prosecuted themselves! This is the society that Frédéric Dopagne sees as the democracy of the future.

At the same time, I have to defend myself. This means that I have to hire lawyers for complex and lengthy, and therefore costly, proceedings. This is an additional burden that has been added to my situation.

Have there been any reactions from the public—from the media, individuals, organizations?

The vast majority of those who are aware of my case are outraged by the EU’s actions and its denial of basic human rights. Several petitions are currently circulating in French-speaking Switzerland,² German-speaking Switzerland,³ Germany⁴, and Italy.⁵ There may be others.

So far, more than 30,000 people have signed these petitions. They include journalists, lawyers, university professors, former intelligence agents, former directors of intelligence services, and so on.

I am often approached on the street by people who express their support for me. For example, I receive a lot of support from the African community in Brussels.

This probably explains why Swiss journalists such as Sylvain Besson and Serge Michel and politicians such as Cédric Wermuth⁶ are among those who believe I deserve these sanctions.

It is difficult to gauge the reaction in France, as the traditional media have hardly reported on my case. It is also interesting that, despite numerous requests from readers, television viewers, or listeners, no one is willing to organize controversial debates on these issues. In reality, our media know that they are spreading state propaganda. It is no coincidence that censorship-like measures are on the rise across Europe: the weaker governance becomes, the more protective measures it must take.

In 2022, when everyone was convinced that Russia would lose the war, there was no reason for censorship. Today, now that we know that it was all lies, they are inventing hybrid wars in which the Russian secret service is interested in bedbugs in Parisian hotels!⁷

Several conclusions can be drawn from this. First, there are many people in our media who believe that politics should take precedence over the law. This is dangerous for democracy, because in a constitutional state, the law takes precedence.Second, it shows that we do not understand war. Ukrainian soldiers trained in Europe complained that they had not been trained for the right kind of war.8 Take, for example, Lieutenant Colonel Pascal Kohler, who writes an article about me in the ASMZ that shows he simply does not understand the war he is trying to describe. At the beginning of the conflict, the Ukrainians had numerical superiority and Western support, which compensated for their losses during the conflict, not to mention support in the area of intelligence. Nevertheless, they are losing today. This is not because of their potential, but because we have led them into a war that is not the same as the Russians’. It is thanks to Michel, Wermuth, and Kohler that the Ukrainians are in trouble today.Is there a way to fight back so that you can be removed from the list? Contrary to what our Belgian lawyer says, we are not in a judicial or legal process, but in a political process. In other words, even if we also take legal action to obtain justice, the process will essentially be political in nature. In this context, Switzerland’s commitment is important, but not sufficient. The EU is an organization whose functioning is not determined by principles such as the rule of law and the separation of powers, and which therefore behaves like a dictatorship. Switzerland is a country committed to the principle of direct democracy. With the EU, this principle would disappear and the Swiss would be subject to extrajudicial measures, as is the case with me. This is not the life we want. It is important that we express our opposition to a political system that does not respect the fundamental rights of the individual and places the politics of a few corrupt individuals above the law. I think that in my situation, public pressure is by no means negligible. Petitions and expressions of solidarity are very important, especially if the EU values its relations with Switzerland. Apart from the supporters of the ideologies of the 1930s that I mentioned, the Swiss population today is aware of the dangers posed by organizations that disregard the law.

Incidentally, I am not the only one to point out this problem, as even the latest US National Security Strategy states that Europe is drifting toward dictatorship.⁹

Mr. Baud, thank you very much for talking to us.

Interview Thomas Kaiser

The petitions for Jacques Baud can still be signed at the following links:

French-speaking Switzerland: www.change.org/p/soutenons-jacques-baud

German-speaking Switzerland: www.patriotpetition.org/2025/12/20/schweizer-buerger-muessen-vor-eu-sanktionen-geschuetzt-werden/

Germany and others: free-baud.org/

Italy and others: rightoflaweu.org/index.php?lan=EN

*Jacques Baud holds a master’s degree in econometrics and a postgraduate degree in international security from the Graduate Institute of International Relations in Geneva and was a colonel in the Swiss Army. He worked for the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service and was a security advisor for refugee camps in eastern Zaire during the Rwandan war. He has also worked for NATO in Ukraine and is the author of several books on intelligence services, asymmetric warfare, terrorism, and disinformation.

“There is no principle of separation of powers in the EU.”

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