EU-Switzerland talks move back on track

Date: 18/04/1996

AFTER months of fruitless wrangling, Switzerland's talks with the Union recovered lost momentum this week as the two sides started negotiations on a fresh offer tabled by Bern aimed at breaking the impasse in three crucial areas.

EU foreign ministers will get a first chance to examine the Swiss proposals and come up with an official Union response when they meet next Monday (22 April) in Luxembourg.

The new flexibility shown by Bern after months of prodding from member states is the result of careful discussions within the four-party-government coalition.

It is also a clear indication of Switzerland's strong need to conclude a deal after three years of talks with the EU aimed at improving cooperation and mutual market access in fields ranging from transport to agriculture and from research to the free movement of people.

The European Commission warmly welcomed the latest Swiss move. One official commented: “It's no longer a dialogue of the deaf.”

While the talks on research, public procurement markets and other more technical subjects are close to a conclusion, the EU and Swiss positions on the movement of people and the equally sensitive issues of road and air transport have remained deadlocked until now.

The fear of triggering a fresh outburst of anti-EU sentiment amongst the Swiss electorate has long prevented Bern from accepting the Union's insistent demand that EU citizens wishing to work in Switzerland and lorries eager to cross it should be given the same treatment as Swiss people and freight.

Switzerland is now proposing a step-by-step approach, which would amount to a gradual phasing in of equal treatment provisions over five years in the case of the free movement of people, and a period lasting until 2005 in the road transport sector.

The Swiss government, however, is insisting on safeguard clauses for both projects, anxious to keep open the option of withdrawing these concessions if a several-year trial period does not produce the desired results.

In exchange for the new flexibility, Switzerland expects the Union to improve its offer on air transport, as it is keen to secure full access to the open EU market for its increasingly pressured carrier Swissair.

Yet even the conclusion of a deal between the EU and Bern, which Swiss negotiators now hope to achieve before the summer holidays, would not mean that EU citizens and freight companies could rely on being granted full access to Switzerland sometime in the next decade.

Switzerland's unique model of a referendum-based democracy means grassroots opposition could shoot down the accord if a sufficient number of voters think their Europhile government has moved one step too far towards Brussels.