Switzerland Considering EU Options

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

21 June 2005

Speaking to the Swiss media last week, senior Foreign Ministry official, Michael Ambühl revealed that the government has commissioned a two-year report examining the various ways in which closer cooperation with the European Union could be achieved.

According to reports, Mr Ambühl hinted that if the Swiss populace votes in September in favour of opening the Swiss labour market to the ten new EU member states, an association agreement between Switzerland and the European bloc could be the way forward.

"In some ways it would provide an institutional framework for the bilateral approach," he told the SonntagsZeitung.

Ambühl went on to warn against a no vote in the forthcoming referendum, as the European Union has made joining the passport-free Schengen zone conditional on the extension of the existing labour market agreement.

"If the Swiss vote against extending the accord on the free movement of people, they would create two classes of EU citizens, those with the right to work in Switzerland and those without it. This would be a form of discrimination which the EU would not allow," he told the Sunday newspaper.

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