SWITZERLAND-EU
The MEP wants to use the “secret card” to get Switzerland out of the impasse
Andreas Schwab, head of the Swiss delegation to the EU Parliament, puts his proposals on the table to resolve institutional issues.
Makes an effort to unblock: MEP Andreas Schwab.
“Strictly confidential” is written above the 9-page concept paper that Andreas Schwab, MEP of the CDU and head of the Swiss delegation, sent to his colleagues and to the president of the EU Parliament Roberta Metsola. This includes his suggestions on how to get Swiss-EU relations back on track, which had reached a dead end since the end of the framework agreement last May.
Specifically, the trained lawyer presents his draft update of the bilateral agreements, which tries to take into account the will of the Federal Council. Last February, the latter decided to no longer strive for a broad and comprehensive framework agreement. Instead, the issues of dynamic legal adoption and dispute resolution should be addressed individually in each agreement itself. Schwab now presents his approach for this.
Horizontally Linked Vertical Approach: A Legal Gimmick?
Alone: it remains a mystery what Schwab’s paper should classify as “strictly confidential.” In any case, the so-called “non-paper” does not contain much innovative.
Schwab aims to deliver each agreement individually, but with the same institutional addition and then update it “identically”. For reasons of form, this is the same as the “vertical approach” desired by the Federal Council. However, depending on the agreement the Federal Council is fighting for, institutional adjustments, in particular with regard to the free movement of persons, would not be possible. Ultimately, it would again be a horizontal approach as in the framework agreement. Critics would probably say: a legal intelligence.
“Myth debunked” about immigration in social systems
In addition to offering institutional solutions, Schwab MEP is also attempting to raise awareness. According to him, the debate on the framework agreement in Switzerland is trapped in some “nonsense arguments”. For example, when immigrating to social systems. This is also not provided for in EU law: “Put simply: no work, no money, no residence permit,” writes Schwab.
In the opposite direction, he stresses that the expulsion of criminal EU citizens is also possible in the EU. In the wage protection dispute, he reiterates once again that the principle of “equal pay for the same job in the same place” also applies in the EU. He refers to the Swiss peculiarities of a posting limited to only 90 days and a four-day notice, as already promised by the EU in the draft framework agreement.
It is not clear whether the European Parliament document will have the desired effect. It is the EU Commission and not the EU Parliament that talks with the Secretary of State Livia Leu. This will be a guest in Brussels on 11 November for a new round.
For their part, EU Member States no longer expect a breakthrough in the near future. Their joint declaration on relations between Switzerland and the EU, scheduled for this year, was again deleted from the agenda because the talks are not progressing, they say. For the rest of the year the conclusions of 2019 apply, which clearly state: No new agreement without an institutional solution.
