Brussels, 04/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 3 March, the Swiss Federal Councillor responsible for the freedom of movement portfolio, Simonetta Sommaruga, who was in Brussels to attend the Council of Home Affairs Ministers and to visit the COMIX, the body which brings together the Schengen countries and manages related dossiers, denied that there would be any adverse consequences of the referendum of 9 February 4 her country's membership of the Schengen area and rejected any link with a reintroduction of controls on the Swiss borders.
At a press conference, the Swiss official said that she had come to report back to the European ministers on the situation brought about by the referendum of 9 February , when 50.3% of Swiss citizens asked their government to bring back quotas for European workers within three years.
“The people of Switzerland voted on the free movement of people and not on the Schengen and Dublin agreements” (the latter being the regulation which governs the distribution of asylum seekers throughout the EU), she said. On Friday 28 February, a number of European sources spoke of the need to re-examine Switzerland's membership of Schengen, due to concerns that the reintroduction of quotas for workers could automatically translate into new border controls. The Greek Presidency of the Council of the EU also referred to this link with Dublin and Schengen, at a debate at the European Parliament last Wednesday on the consequences of the vote. “But nothing will change for them (Europeans), the acquis is still in place”, a source explained, adding: “tourists will still be able to come as before, nothing will change on the borders”. The Dublin regulation, on the other hand, could be affected. Indeed, the referendum also suggests reviewing quotas for asylum seekers. But “for Schengen, there is no link”, the source repeated. Nor has the subject been discussed with the ministers, Sommaruga stated.
The main aim of this meeting was to discuss the range of consequences triggered by the referendum of 9 February, from quotas for European workers to be reduced within three years to the fact that it is now impossible for Switzerland to sign the protocol extending the freedom of movement of people to the Croatians. No concrete solution was however put forward at this meeting. But the Swiss government is to communicate on the subject at the end of March or early April.
Call to order by the European ministers. On Monday, the minister sought mainly to reassure her EU counterparts that the vote of 9 February was not a matter of “stopping all immigration, but of putting a new immigration system in place”. And even this would not happen for three years. “For people living in the border regions, therefore, nothing will change”. The Councillor describes the ministers as “understanding”, even though they made it clear that the freedom of movement was not, in their view, negotiable. And at the moment, it is Berne itself which is suffering the immediate effects of the referendum, as the EU lost no time in suspending a whole raft of negotiations underway, such as the ones on electricity, Erasmus or the Horizon 2020 programme, which will remain on ice until Switzerland fulfils its obligations towards the Croatians. (SP)