Promoters of the new Compass initiative paint a frightening picture. Will Switzerland fall under the bandwagon of European legislation because of Bilateral III? It’s not serious – if I dare say so. First of all, the dynamic resumption of law concerns exactly eight bilateral agreements and Switzerland retains its sovereignty in this area at all times. No other legal area is affected, for the simple reason that there are no bilateral agreements in this sense between Switzerland and the EU. In the areas in question, Switzerland wants to follow its own path – and will do so. There is therefore no reason or obligation to align with the EU in the tax area or to adopt sustainability regulations identically. Switzerland pursues its own economic promotion policy and that is a good thing. Another equally important aspect is that, for the eight agreements concerned, it is a dynamic – that is to say not automatic – resumption of developments in European law, with the aim of proper functioning of reciprocal market access for both trading partners. Direct democratic rights are preserved. The Federal Council, Parliament and the people retain their right to speak whenever the law is adopted in the relevant bilateral agreements with the EU.
The painted picture of horror is one thing. The heavy artillery brought out by the authors of the initiative is another. If we take them at their word, they want to “destroy” the Bilateral IIIs. The text of the initiative goes much further and remains vague on certain points. No indication, for example, as to whether the guarantee of the acquired situation also applies to the air transport agreement and to Schengen/Dublin. These agreements, which also provide for a dynamic resumption of European law, were in fact adopted by optional referendum. Does the initiative also want to target Bilaterals I? And that’s not all. The initiative wants a massive expansion of the mandatory referendum, to which other important international treaties would then also be subject. This is reminiscent of the popular initiative “International agreements: the people have their say!”, swept aside twelve years ago by more than 75% of voters.
Conclusion: the Compass initiative targets the bilateral path and deliberately compromises it – without plan B. This is not a sensible economic promotion policy that would have the interests of our country at heart. We will benefit from staying our course, because bilateral agreements offer a win-win situation for Switzerland: access to the market of our main trading partner and participation in important programs like Horizon Europe while remaining the architects of our economic promotion policy. . For a competitive Switzerland dedicated to direct democracy – Yes to Bilaterals.
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