EU seeks to make stalled Swiss deal tick again
European Commission to present options on how to move forward with Bern
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Slicing the cake
EU-Swiss relations have always been a messy fondue. But the current deadlock could end up with Brussels cutting Bern’s access to parts of the single market, write Valentina Pop in Brussels and Sam Jones in Zurich.
When the UK voted for Brexit in 2016 and set the stage for years of clashes with the EU, officials in the European bloc decided they needed to take a more disciplined line with Switzerland. They wanted to pare down the existing 120 EU-Switzerland sectoral agreements — and give the European Court of Justice jurisdiction over disputes.
“Basically the Swiss have the best of the worlds, they can have the cake and eat it,” said an EU diplomat familiar with the talks. “But this is not sustainable. Everyone needs to get a fair share of the cake.”
Talks on an overarching agreement had been going since 2014, after a referendum in which Swiss voters rejected freedom of movement. A provisional deal was penned in 2018 — but Brussels didn’t hear back.
In recent weeks, including during a visit to Brussels by Guy Parmelin, president of the Swiss Confederation, it has become increasingly clear that Bern has no intention of ratifying the agreement. In an interview on Saturday, the EU ambassador to Switzerland, Petros Mavromichalis, warned the moribund negotiations were “the chronicle of a death foretold”.
Now, officials in Brussels speak of two options to break the impasse, which will be presented to EU affairs ministers today:
1- Cajole Bern to agree to the deal, with some minor adjustments
2- Do nothing and let the sectoral agreements or equivalence decisions lapse, cutting Switzerland off in areas such as medical devices or access to EU research funds under the bloc’s new seven-year budget
The hard EU approach emerged after the failure of a previous attempt to strong-arm Bern. The European bloc refused to renew an equivalence decision for the Swiss stock exchange, which lapsed in 2019 — but Bern did not cave.
The Swiss side meanwhile has demanded to carve out three areas from the agreement: freedom of movement, social benefits and wages for EU workers in Switzerland and state aid rules. EU officials said the demands were unacceptable as they were core areas to any deal on single market access.
An opinion poll over the weekend showed 64 per cent of Swiss in favour of a deal with Brussels. But getting the agreement past the finishing line would be no small feat. It would require not just a nationwide referendum but also a political accord across parties, trade unions, business lobbying groups — and all 26 cantons.
Any compromise with the EU is strongly opposed by Switzerland’s biggest political party, the rightwing populist SVP. The country’s other political groups also have problems with parts of the draft accord. Social democrats have resisted any move that would water down Swiss labour protections, for example.
But Bern’s rigid stance could be tactical. It may be hoping that some of its EU member neighbours will blink first and agree to more substantial concessions. The possible motivation: to prevent a total breakdown in relations — which would ultimately hurt the bottom line of many companies in the EU.