As expected, the ambassadors of the Twenty-Eight returned on Wednesday 26 June to the situation in Switzerland and bilateral relations, as the Commission prepares to let the stock exchange equivalence granted to Berne in December expire on 30 June.
The Commission also explained on Wednesday the reasons for using a technical decision to exert political pressure, reported several sources, as the institution had made great efforts to get Switzerland to accept the draft framework agreement with the EU and now wanted to make it clearer to Berne what it would have to lose in terms of participation in the single market.
Several delegations expressed doubts about this method towards a close partner, in particular countries whose stock exchanges could be affected, but the overall economic impact for EU markets is not significant enough for these countries to have tried to oppose the Commission. They thus implicitly supported its choice to link a political problem to a technical decision, in this case, on the stock exchange.
Several countries also expressed concern about the contribution to cohesion that Switzerland regularly makes to the economically less developed EU countries, a contribution that represents Switzerland's financial participation in the internal market.
Without any last-minute changes, the equivalence will expire this Sunday, June 30, at midnight. The Finnish Presidency may be asked to organise a new item at Coreper as soon as possible. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)