Switzerland: An agreement with the European Union after such a long wait

The Swiss government should give the green light on Friday to a rapprochement agreement with the European Union, the first step in a long journey fraught with pitfalls for possible adoption by the small Alpine country.

It took hundreds of meetings between diplomats from Brussels and Bern to agree on a series of bilateral agreements which should strengthen cooperation between the two economic partners, currently governed by more than 120 texts.

But it will also be necessary to convince the Swiss Parliament of the merits of the project and above all the people, who will have the last word on this subject which will influence the future of the country. A consultation with an uncertain outcome.

A sectoral approach aimed at updating bilateral agreements

In March, Switzerland agreed to relaunch talks with the EU, after having abruptly ended them in 2021, not without angering Brussels.

Unlike previous negotiations whose aim was to establish a general framework agreement, the current negotiations, which the parties want to conclude this year, adopt a sectoral approach aimed at updating existing bilateral agreements and concluding new ones (electricity, health and food security).

Swiss media, citing diplomatic sources, have claimed in recent days that all issues have been resolved except the amount of the Swiss contribution to the European cohesion fund which helps certain countries catch up with their development delays.

“We think we have achieved a very delicate balance”

“Now that an agreement is in sight, we hope that Switzerland will be ready to move forward. We believe we have achieved a very delicate balance, which should be appreciated as such by all parties,” a European diplomatic source in Brussels indicated this week.

The Swiss Trade Union Union (USS), the largest employee organization, is calling for additional negotiations, believing that the agreement as it stands will deteriorate the quality of wages in the country. The negotiations on rail and electricity also worry the unions.

Even for the Swiss Business Federation, which is rather favorable due to economic issues, Switzerland must have the possibility of managing immigration itself if it “exceeds tolerable limits”.

Europe “is not à la carte”

The federal government is seeking to obtain a so-called safeguard clause to suspend in certain circumstances free movement, one of the pillars of European construction.

The European ministers of the 27 have so far recalled that Europe “is not à la carte”.

The conclusion of the negotiations would only mark the beginning of a long parliamentary procedure, which will be followed by a popular vote with an uncertain result while the radical right, embodied by the Democratic Union of the Center (UDC), which has consolidated its status of Switzerland’s leading party in the 2023 legislative elections, is head-on against the agreement.

“It’s grotesque”

Faced with the prospect of a difficult popular vote, the Swiss government decided last week to change strategy by dividing the package of future bilateral agreements into four “tranches”, or four referendums, revealed the German-speaking Swiss television SRF this week.

The UDC is already fighting hard against the agreement, which it describes as a “submission agreement” in its already very active campaign against the text.

“It’s grotesque: if we do not adopt European regulations, the EU considers us to have an advantage” and, with the court, “we would officially authorize the EU to punish us,” accused in the daily Le Temps. one of the richest women in Switzerland, the national deputy and entrepreneur Magdalena Martullo-Blocher, who took up the fight of her father, the charismatic former leader of the UDC Christoph Blocher, against any rapprochement with Brussels.

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