Brussels, 07/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 7 February, the EU was busy preparing to respond to the results of the referendum in Switzerland on Sunday 9 February regarding immigration - and especially immigration from the EU.
Swiss citizens will have to state on Sunday if they want to limit this immigration and set annual quotas for foreign workers - as the radical right UDC party proposes. If this “popular federal initiative against mass immigration of foreigners and asylum seekers” succeeds (as its authors call it), Switzerland would then have three years to renegotiate the current treaties on free movement - and especially its agreement on free movement of European workers with the EU, which entered into force in 2002 and which provided for the end to all restrictions on European workers from June 2014.
In order to be adopted, this popular initiative - which would involve a change in the Swiss constitution - must garner a “double majority”, in other words 50% +1 of the voters, and the majority of cantons (12 out of 23 cantons). This type of popular initiative has met with little success in the past. However, a recent poll on 29 January shows that the UDC initiative had a certain amount of support from the population. Apparently, 43% of voters would be ready to approve the reduction in immigration, compared with 50% who did not want any change, and 7% who were undecided.
Swiss bosses and the government are clearly against the initiative and have called on the Swiss people not to follow the UDC. “The federal Council recommends rejection of the initiative”, the government states in a press release. “The initiative plans for capping the number of residence permits for all categories of foreigners, which would go against the current system of admission”. Switzerland's current policy combines free movement of people from the EU/EFTA and more restrictive movement for third country nationals. “Immigration contributes in large measure to the prosperity of Switzerland. Businesses have been dependent on foreign labour for decades - particularly industry, construction, health, teaching, research, restaurants and agriculture”, the government argues. It states that requiring “capping for residence permits for all categories of foreigners challenges the fundamental principle of the free movement of people”.
Termination of the agreement on the free movement of people with the EU “would result in the other agreements from the first series of bilateral agreements becoming null and void over the following six months (agriculture, public tenders, free movement of people, technical obstacles to trade, research, air transport, and land transport are covered [by these agreements]), states the government. Furthermore, Swiss businesses would consequently have great difficulty recruiting the labour they need and “would be confronted with new obstacles for exporting their products to the European market”.
On Friday, the European Commission stated that it was preparing to respond to the announcement of the results. Several months ago the Commission said that should the vote be positive, Switzerland would find itself in a situation of breaching the agreements that have already been signed. (SP/transl.fl)