Switzerland participated in the negotiations on the EEA Agreement with the EU, signed the Agreement on 2 May 1992 and submitted an application for EU membership on 20 May 1992. A Swiss referendum on 6 December 1992 rejected EEA membership. As a result, the Swiss government has suspended EU accession negotiations until further notice. With the ratification of the second set of bilateral agreements in 2006, the Federal Council lowered its qualification for Switzerland`s full accession to the EU from a « strategic objective » to an « option ». Membership remained the government`s goal and was a « long-term goal » of the Federal Council until 2016, when Switzerland`s frozen application was withdrawn. [25] [26] The motion was adopted by the Council of States in June and then by the Federal Council. [27] [28] [5] By letter of 27. In July, the Federal Council informed the Presidency of the Council of the European Union that it was withdrawing its request. [29] 1992-2002: Switzerland negotiates and then signs the first bilateral agreements with the EU – they are interdependent and include the free movement of persons – supported by a vote in 2000. A comprehensive framework agreement proposed in 2002 Negotiations between Switzerland and the European Commission on an institutional framework agreement began in 2014 and ended in November 2018. On 7 December 2018, the Federal Council decided not to accept or reject the negotiated agreement, but to opt for a public consultation.
[18] The negotiated agreement[19] would cover five areas of the existing agreements between the EU and Switzerland from 1999 onwards: in the field of foreign and security policy, Switzerland and the EU do not have cross-border agreements. However, in its 2000 Security Report, the Federal Council announced the importance of contributing to stability and peace beyond Switzerland`s borders and of building an international community of values. As a result, Switzerland has started to cooperate on projects under the EU`s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Switzerland has provided personnel or equipment to EU peacekeeping and security missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of congo, Kosovo, Macedonia and Aceh in Indonesia. More than 100 bilateral agreements govern cooperation between the EU and Switzerland. In recent years, the European Commission has advocated for an institutional framework agreement that regulates the most important of these agreements and ensures that Switzerland does not undermine the unity of the EU`s internal market. Relations are currently governed by more than 120 bilateral agreements, and not replacing them with a framework agreement could affect relations. These bilateral agreements between the EU and Switzerland are currently managed by around 20 joint committees. Of these thirteen votes, three are against further integration into the EU or in favour of reversing integration into the EU (6 December 1992, 4 March 2001 and 9 February 2014); the other ten are votes for deepening or maintaining integration between Switzerland and the European Union. [23] The Confederation has recently made several substantial policy shifts, but within the framework of the Swiss banking system, specific agreements with the EU on the free movement of workers and the areas of tax evasion have been discussed. This was a consequence of the first Swiss-EU summit in May 2004, at which nine bilateral agreements were signed. Romano Prodi, former president of the European Commission, said the agreements had « brought Switzerland closer to Europe ».
Joseph Deiss, from the Swiss Federal Council, said: « We may not be at the centre of Europe, but we are definitely at the heart of Europe. » He continued, « We are entering a new era of relations between our two entities. » [33] Despite much speculation and gloomy predictions about the negative impact that the stock market battle would have on Switzerland, Swiss equities traded well on July 1, the first day of the opening of the Swiss Stock Exchange without EU recognition for trading decision. Since then, the shares of Swiss companies can only be traded on local stock exchanges. A month later, Swiss equities were still soaring. Switzerland`s bilateral relations with the European Union have been the subject of intensive discussions for years. In 2014, the two sides began negotiations on the terms of an institutional framework agreement that would institutionalize their bilateral relations. On 26 May, the Swiss government announced that it was withdrawing from these negotiations and would not sign the agreement. Given the different wishes and expectations of the two sides, it is not surprising that both sides also assessed differently the risks of failure of the institutional framework agreement. In 2004, a new set of sectoral agreements (so-called « bilateral II ») was signed concerning, inter alia, Switzerland`s participation in Schengen and Dublin, as well as agreements on taxation of savings income, processed agricultural products, statistics, the fight against fraud, participation in the EU media programme and the Environment Agency. « Switzerland`s European Policy: Institutional Agreement », Federal Directorate for European Affairs Figure 1: Bilateral relations: ideal scenario, status quo and expected development if the institutional framework agreement is adopted, September 2020.
The Federal Council has decided not to sign the INSTA. Negotiations with the EU did not produce the results that Switzerland needed to sign the agreement. Based on the assessment of the current state, supporters expected a reduction in cooperation of 2.2 points, while opponents expected a reduction of only 0.9 points. At the same time, the average value of bilateral relations to be expected in case of failure was much closer to the ideal scenario of the opponents than in the case of the adoption of the agreement (distance of 0.3 points in case of failure and 1.7 points in case of acceptance). On Wednesday 26 May, Switzerland broke off years of talks with the European Union aimed at sealing a cooperation agreement with Bern`s biggest trading partner, angering Brussels. Together with Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, which are non-EU members, Switzerland is a member of the European Free Trade Association. In fact, Switzerland and the EU seem to have a hard time understanding each other. While for Šefčovič the end of the negotiations was a « sudden break », the framework agreement seemed hopeless in the eyes of the Swiss public for some time.
The framework agreement, which would more or less replace the existing bilateral agreements, would preserve the five most important market access agreements between Switzerland and the EU and act as a kind of « umbrella » for these agreements. They concern (1) the free movement of persons, (2) technical and commercial barriers, (3) agriculture, (4) land transport and (5) air transport. Before 2014, the bilateral approach, as it is known in Switzerland, was systematically supported by the Swiss people in referendums. It allows the Swiss to maintain a sense of sovereignty through agreements where changes in EU law only apply if a bilateral joint committee decides to do so by consensus. It also limits the EU`s influence to the ten areas where the EEA includes more territories, with more exceptions than the EEA. Figure 3: Individual expectations regarding the consequences of the failure and renegotiation of the Institutional Framework Agreement, February 2021 The seven agreements are closely linked by the requirement that they enter into force simultaneously and cease to apply six months after receipt of a notice of non-renewal or termination concerning one of them. [6] After the deadline, the EU, which has been seeking a framework agreement for a decade, carried out its threat to end the recognition of Swiss stock exchange rules – which allowed EU investors to do business in Switzerland. Previously, the European Commission had begun to tighten the screws, stating that current bilateral agreements could only be updated and that new market access agreements could be concluded if a framework agreement was adopted.
The currency of Switzerland is the Swiss franc. Switzerland (along with Liechtenstein) is in the unusual position of being surrounded by countries that use the euro. As a result, the euro is de facto accepted in many places, especially near borders and in tourist regions. The Swiss Federal Railways accepts euros at both ticket offices and vending machines. [42] Many public telephones, ATMs or ATMs also accept euro coins. Many shops and small businesses that accept euros only take notes and give change in Swiss francs, usually at a less favorable exchange rate than banks. .