Swiss adopt cautious pace in talks with EU

Date: 04/01/1996

By Conny Lotze

GRIDLOCKED talks between Switzerland and the EU will take a fresh turn this year as Berne pushes for agreements it hopes will serve its own cautious pace towards Union integration while meeting some of the EU's more rigorous demands.

The catch-phrase here is “gradual development”. Instead of opening its borders right away to every citizen who wants to earn Swiss francs and every 40-tonne lorry wanting to take a shortcut through the Alps, Switzerland wants to make a few concessions up-front with more to come later.

This step-by-step approach is vital for the Berne government in its attempts to convince a majority of Swiss that closer cooperation with the EU would be advantageous. A failed referendum on the package under negotiation now would set Switzerland back by years, if not decades, in terms of EU membership - and membership is what the government still aspires to in the long term. But Berne desperately wants to avoid any accord that would resemble membership of the European Economic Area, which Swiss voters rejected in a referendum in 1992.

“Our domestic situation has to be taken into account because there is a lot of fear of opening our borders. But we are willing to sit down again and offer further steps towards closer cooperation,” says Dominik Furgler, the Swiss government's spokesman for European integration.

Although much progress has been made in the areas of trade, agriculture, public procurement and scientific research, agreement still hinges on disputes over the freedom of EU citizens to work in Switzerland, and over road and air traffic. While Switzerland is ready to commit itself to a gradual easing on restrictions for EU employees, the Union wants to set a three-year transition phase before Switzerland is forced to abandon all limitations. But such a timetable is unacceptable to the Swiss, who argue it is harsher than the five-year transition phase allowed to new EEA members.

The government is insisting on maintaining quotas on the number of people allowed to work in Switzerland, an automatic preference for domestic workers over EU applicants, and legislation to combat wage and social security dumping.

Ironically, the dispute over quotas and preferential treatment is somewhat moot, since the quotas currently implemented are only exhausted by 50&percent;. So, the EU argues, why not do away with something that appears to be obsolete? Switzerland counters this with the same logic: why abolish something that is alleviating the population's fears that the country will be flooded by a mass of unemployed Europeans? “Psychologically, this is incredibly important,” says Furgler.

An alternative which could solve the dispute would be to grant Switzerland a protection clause similar to Luxembourg's, which allows the government to put a stop to sudden mass immigration. In return, the Swiss would offer to ease drastically restrictions on seasonal and cross-border workers, and grant EU employees the same social benefits as domestic workers.

On the deadlocked transport agreement, Switzerland is thinking in terms of a two-step solution. The first phase would introduce improvements which can be swiftly implemented, such as liberalising the Swiss rail system to open it to other countries' railroads and even to private train operators. Furthermore, Switzerland would agree to ease restrictions a little on 40-tonne trucks whose final destinations lie within the country.

But in return, it would insist on continued strict observance of an earlier transport accord valid until 2005. The second phase would foresee a comprehensive European pact on the protection of the Alps.