The European Union regretted Switzerland’s decision to end negotiations on a framework agreement. After seven years, Switzerland unilaterally ended talks on closer ties to the EU on Wednesday. The reason was differences over state aid and social rights.
The European Commission speaks of “lost opportunities” for Switzerland.
“Our existing trade agreement with Switzerland is almost 50 years old. Our packages of agreements by sector are more than 20 years old. European legislation will continue to develop and as long as we do not have framework agreements, none of these agreements will develop,” said Commission spokesman Eric Mamer.
Swiss companies no longer receive automatic EU certifications
“There will be a growing gap and that means lost opportunities for Swiss companies in the European Union,” explains Eric Mamer.
The agreement was intended as a kind of guideline for the existing treaties. This should regulate, for example, automatic adjustments to updated EU directives.
In future, for example, Swiss certifications for medical devices will no longer be automatically recognized. Manufacturers then have to apply for certification if they want to sell their products in the EU.
Above all, the right-wing Swiss party SVP was against changing the rules to protect high Swiss wages and EU citizens’ access to Swiss social security funds.
The sticking point was immigration
There were sticking points that have been a recurring topic in recent years, with regard to wages, state aid rules and immigration.
The Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said on Wednesday that if the agreement was signed, everyone with an EU passport could freely enter Switzerland and receive social benefits. And that would be a paradigm shift in immigration and migration policy that the country does not want to take on.
Switzerland and the EU work closely together through many cooperation agreements. According to EU data, 1.4 million EU citizens live in Switzerland, including 300,000 Germans. A good 340,000 EU citizens commute to Switzerland every day. 400,000 Swiss live in the EU. Trade with the EU accounts for 60 percent of Switzerland’s gross domestic product, followed by the USA with just under twelve percent. Conversely, Switzerland is the EU’s fourth largest trading partner after the USA, China and Great Britain.
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