EU-Swiss single market trade deal faces challenging referendum 

The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), the country’s largest political force, said on Friday morning that it opposed the agreement.

“The SVP says no to this treaty of submission to the EU. The treaty is undemocratic, untrustworthy and unacceptable,” the party declared in a statement, adding that “this would lead to even more immigration” and that “Switzerland would be subject to foreign judges!” citing the EU Court of Justice’s power to arbitrate disputes in the putative deal.

“This agreement between the EU and Switzerland is historic, this is the beginning of a long lasting cooperation,” von der Leyen, who had travelled to Bern said, adding that “it is also part of a larger context which is highly important” with increasing global competition and tensions.

The aim of the deal is to integrate Switzerland into the EU single market, by updating existing agreements on free movement of people, transport and trade of agricultural products. Some new agreements have also been reached to integrate Switzerland to the EU internal electricity market as well as to allow its researchers to participate in some EU research programmes such as Horizon Europe.

Switzerland is the EU’s fourth largest trading partner for goods and third for services, EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič recalled on Friday, with this “overall bilateral trade agreement worth €550 billion.”

Under the pencilled deal, Switzerland would participate in the EU cohesion funds, with a first contribution for 2030-2036 of €375 million per year.

But the most sensitive point in the negotiations concerned a safeguard clause that both parties can activate in the event of disproportionate economic consequences linked to the deal. This was a request from the Swiss side after it brutally interrupted the negotiations in 2021 – before they resumed in March of this year – Bern demanding a safeguard clause on immigration.

The final agreement stipulates that in the event of a disagreement on the activation of such a clause, the parties will be able to submit their differences to an arbitration tribunal and that the party activating the safeguard clause will be able to take balancing measures before the tribunal takes its decision.

In exchange for this concession to the Swiss, the EU obtained access for European students to Swiss universities with the same entrance fees as Swiss students.

The agreement must now be ratified by the EU and Switzerland. On Friday, Šefčovič expressed confidence in the process that will be undertaken on the European side. The agreement will have to be approved by all 27 Member States and by the European Parliament.

The game looks more complicated on the Swiss side, where the agreement will have to be validated by the Parliament and by the Swiss population by referendum.

In a survey published in October by the Gfs.bern Insitute, only 6% of Swiss respondents had a “very positive feeling” about the EU, a minority (22%) considered it to be rather positive, but 49% of respondents said they felt “negative or rather negative” about the EU.

The Swiss Union of Trade Unions (USS), the largest employees’ organisation, has been ambivalent on a deal amid fears that the agreement would result in lower wages in Switzerland. It announced on Friday that it would take time to examine the agreement before taking an official position.

The SVP, on its side, is already on the campaign trail.