Brussels, 21/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 26 October, the European Union and Switzerland will sign nine bilateral agreements negotiated at length over recent years, as well as the protocol for extension to the new Member States of the agreement on the movement of European workers in Switzerland.
The nine agreements concern: (a) Savings taxation, mainly providing for withholding on savings income from savings placed in Switzerland by EU residents, and the exchange of information in the case of tax fraud; (b) the fight against fraud, which provides for mutual judiciary and administrative cooperation in cases of fraud, smuggling and money laundering; (c) Schengen, which facilitates the free movement of Swiss and European citizens, especially crossborder workers; (d) the Dublin Convention on the right of asylum and Swiss participation in the asylum seekers' database, Eurodac; (e) processed farm produce, on which bilateral preferential conditions have been adjusted to enlargement; (f) the environment, whereby Swiss will benefit from certain information from the European Environment Agency; (g) statistics and Swiss participation in the European statistical system; (h) the media and Swiss participation in the Community Media programme; and (i) means to avoid double taxation of European officials who retire to Switzerland.
The additional protocol to the agreement on the free movement of persons allows Switzerland to keep labour market access restrictions for nationals of the new Member States until 2011. Until 2014, in the event of massive immigration, Switzerland will be able to re-introduce quotas.
After signature, there is ratification, the last stage in the process before implementation of agreements concluded in May and initialled in June (EUROPE of 20 May). On the European Union side, all the agreements will be ratified by the Council, except that relating to fraud, which should be ratified by all Member States after they have signed it on Monday 25 October. Ratification looks more difficult on the Swiss side for some of the agreements. The Parliament is expected to take a stance in December but then the agreements will be submitted to referendum. This is likely to be the case for the Schengen and Dublin agreements.