Swiss Bilateral EU Accords Near Implementation

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

22 November 2001

Implementation of the set of bilateral accords signed between Switzerland and the EU last year has drawn closer, reports SwissInfo, with favourable ratification votes this week in the French and Irish parliaments.

After a lengthy debate in the French Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday evening, the lower house voted in favour of the accords, which cover cross-border trade and transport issues. Several deputies in the assembly dismissed the deal as unfair, saying they favoured Switzerland. The president of the French Foreign Affairs Commission, the former socialist minister, Francois Loncle, said the Swiss “stand to benefit from all the advantages of the EU without having to join.” He was referring to an accord governing the free movement of people, which will effectively allow Swiss citizens to work in the EU some four years before their EU counterparts can work in Switzerland.

Of the seven dossiers signed between Bern and Brussels in 1999, the National Assembly had only to vote on the agreement governing the free movement of people. This accord needs to be ratified by all EU member parliaments in order for the package of seven accords to come into effect.

The French government said the accord would make life easier for the 70,000 people, many of whom are French, who cross the border each day to work in Switzerland.

French president Jacques Chirac has yet to complete the process and sign the agreement, which will then be sent back to Brussels. The upper house of parliament, the Senate, ratified the accords on October 11 after several setbacks.

One day after the French parliament, the Irish Senate on Wednesday also gave its approval to the accords. No surprises were expected from the senators on Wednesday. “The five or six representatives present all voted for the accords,” said Switzerland’s ambassador to Eire, Eric Pfister. The members of the Dail, the lower house, still have to give their approval, something that should happen next Thursday according to Pfister. The ambassador sees no reason for the politicians to withhold agreement. Ratification had been delayed in Ireland, where the accords had been linked to an aviation law. But a request from the Swiss authorities to separate the two issues was accepted last month.

Once France and Ireland have given their approval, Belgium is the only remaining country yet to discuss the accords at a national level.

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