Why did Switzerland not want to join the United Nations?

Answer 1

I did a presentation on this topic not too long ago - one of the main reasons is that Switzerland is one of the few direct democracies left in the world, whereas the EU is a form of representative democracy such as is found in most democracies today. The people were afraid that their interests would not be properly represented in the EU, not to mention that Switzerland would become one of the richest members of the EU and thus have to pay large sums annually for the EU's cohesion policy, which reallocates money to the poorest regions (not countries, but rather specific regions - so some regions in France for example still get significant aid despite France being one of the richest members). Of course this would mean that although Switzerland would become an official member of the Single Market, it would still lose a lot of money to the EU's Cohesion Policy. This combined with the fear of being largely ignored by the EU and its representative form of governance was enough to lead the people to reject the referendum.

Answer 2

Because Switzerland is neutral, and the constitution bans it from joining any military alliance. The UN has troops and is therefore technically a military alliance.

In 2002 the Swiss constitution was changed to make the UN an exception, and Switzerland then joined the UN.

Answer 3

Switzerland is not in the EU, so it doesn't have the option to join the Euro.