Warming of relationships to come?
Switzerland adopted a negotiating mandate on Friday to move closer to the European Union, with the country's leading party denouncing "total submission to the EU" and the unions "a serious deterioration of wage protection".
Negotiations will begin “probably during the month of March” when the European Commission itself has obtained the green light from the European Council, indicated the Federal Councilor in charge of Foreign Affairs, Ignazio Cassis.
He presented the final mandate on the basis of which negotiations with the European Commission will take place, during a press briefing.
The Federal Council had carried out a vast consultation since the end of 2023 to gather the points of view of stakeholders in the Swiss economy but also of parliament and the cantons (the federated states).
With broad support, he has refined the scope of negotiations on the various packages on which he is ready to discuss a rapprochement: electricity market, land transport, agricultural products, immigration, salary protection, institutional elements and agreement of free trade.
Relations between Switzerland and its first economic partner are complicated.
They are currently governed by numerous bilateral agreements.
After years of negotiations, Berne simply left the table in 2021, believing that a global agreement had no chance of convincing Switzerland.
The brutal method had cast an icy chill between the EU and the Alpine country but the two parties resumed speaking in mid-2022.
“Very democratic process”
But the new project does not suit either the Democratic Union of the Center, the radical right which strengthened its position as Switzerland's leading party following the parliamentary elections in October, nor the unions which are worried about wage protection. .
The other parties and the employers, as well as the cantons, on the other hand, are more positive.
In parallel with negotiations with the European Commission, the administration will discuss with the partners concerned in the areas of immigration, electricity, wage protection and land transport, in order to define support measures on the domestic plan for a possible agreement.
Parliament, and most certainly the people, will then have to decide.
For Ignazio Cassis, “we are in a very democratic process and this process must be able to go to the end” even if there is a risk of rejection.
“It is difficult, after 15 years of discussions, to now hold back the parliament and the people from finally being able to express themselves.”
But he remains extremely cautious about a timetable even if he has “the hope” of completing the negotiations by the end of the year, affirming that he wants to go “as quickly as possible and as slowly as necessary”.