BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th September, 2020) Switzerland voted this past Sunday on whether or not to scrap its 1999 free movement agreement with the European Union, ultimately embracing continued open borders but with a large proportion of voters in favor of stronger migration control.
The initiative, put forward by the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC), was aimed at enabling the country to take full control over who crosses its borders.
Switzerland has a unique system of popular voting, known as "votation," which is arguably the most democratic in the world. Once a significant group of citizens or cantons requests a change from the federal state, a votation is organized. The Swiss referendum is supreme and can only be outdone by another referendum.
The referendum was originally scheduled for May 17 but postponed due to the coronavirus. Aside from the free movement agreement, four other items were put on the vote. This included a federal law with new hunting regulations, a law on tax deduction of childcare costs by third parties, an act on two-week paternity leave and a purchase of new jets for the armed forces.
The latter two were passed, while the former three were rejected. In particular, around 62 percent of voters chose to keep the free movement of people to and from the EU in effect. Conversely, this means that over one-third of Switzerland's population, or around 38 percent, sees immigration as a major issue.
SWITZERLAND, DREAMLAND OF EUROPE
Who said that high wages meant large unemployment and scarce jobs? Switzerland proves the opposite. The small Alpine country has a thriving economy and leads prudent, financially sustainable policies that satisfy even the European Greens.
Switzerland's unemployment rate last year was below 2 percent, an astoundingly low level compared to the rest of Europe, where it used to be around 10 percent in the years preceding COVID-19. Average gross annual salary remains twice as high in Switzerland as in Europe, according to Eurostat.
Europeans, especially in Switzerland's neighboring countries, have grown strongly attracted to this successful economy. Plenty of Germans, French and Italians commute to work in Switzerland in the morning and cross the border back to home in the evening. Compatriots normally envy them � good salaries in a resilient currency, the Swiss franc, coupled with comparably lower housing expenses as living in Germany, France and Italy costs much less.
It must be said, however, that a strong national Currency often turns disadvantageous for Switzerland's locals.
"The strength of our currency is a great disadvantage for our exports, but the deserved reputation of quality of Swiss products helps us. Still, it is a permanent struggle to cut costs and improve processes," Rudolf Ramseier, the owner and CEO of Cobianchi, an Oberdiessbach-based company producing elevators and components, told Sputnik.
The SVP/UDC party, being the country's largest, sees itself as the guardian of Swiss independence and neutrality. The party has two ministers in the federal government and does not shy away from virulent attacks on Muslim immigration. Their initiative to ban minarets on Swiss mosques succeeded in a referendum in 2009, for example. Contrary to the European Union, the Swiss Supreme Court does not consider Islamophobia as racism and never sanctioned the SVP/UDC for its campaigns.
The UDC wants Switzerland to regain full sovereignty in matters of immigration. This is why the party launched this initiative "for moderate immigration," or "limitation" otherwise. It was supposed to give the Federal Council a year to negotiate the end of the agreement with the EU. In the case of failure, it had to terminate the deal within thirty days.
This initiative, therefore, was not about illegal non-European immigration. On that issue, the SVP/UDC remains firm and is probably supported by a majority of the population. It is more a question of sovereignty and a distrust with the European Union, that shows indeed for several years now how sick it is with Brexit and a will of many EU countries to fall back onto national positions, including in the COVID-19 crisis.
Many compared the Swiss referendum to Brexit, fearing the economic consequences of ending the free labor migration between the EU and Switzerland, especially amid the uneasy aftermath of COVID-19.
At present, Switzerland is obliged to accept workers from EU countries. There was another Swiss referendum in 2014 where voters chose to introduce quotas on the number of immigrants from the bloc, but the parliament ended up codifying a much softer version of this decision, instead greenlighting Swiss companies to prioritize local residents when hiring. And it evidently worked out well for both sides, with 1.4 million Europeans living in Switzerland and some 470,000 Swiss living in EU countries.
In a recent report from the Observatory on the Free Movement of Persons, the Secretariat confirmed that the European workforce has boosted the Swiss economy without taking their jobs from the Swiss. Yet, according to SVP/UDC deputy head Marco Chiesa, "less than 20 percent of immigrants have jobs in professions that are experiencing labor shortage, so this immigration for work does not help Switzerland."
While many Swiss agree with the SVP/UDC party on the need to curb illegal immigration from outside Europe the popular demand for relative economic integration within the EU is also high.
WHY IMMIGRATION INITIATIVE FAILED?
Sputnik spoke to SVP/UDC president Thomas Aeschi about the referendum's outcome.
"We expected this result; and 40 percent of support for our position is an honorable score. I believe that the immigration problems will not be resolved and that sooner or later the subject will come back to the table. It is a missed opportunity. Immigrants coming from Europe to Switzerland work mainly in construction, restaurants and the hotel and catering sector. This is where we see the greatest number of migrants. We must regulate this flow. If we do nothing, the negative consequences of this large influx will continue to create endemic unemployment," Aeschi told Sputnik.
The poor result of the SVP/UDC proposal might also be due to the fact that many Swiss are employed in the horeca sector (abbreviated from hotels, restaurants, cafes) and make a living out of shopping by European commuters or labor migrants in Switzerland.
In a press release on Monday, the SVP/UDC party reiterated its rejection of any further rapprochement with the EU.
"The SVP takes note with regret of the popular rejection of the limitation initiative. Obviously, the fear of the guillotine clause has prevailed and the people, grappling with the coronavirus crisis, prefer to maintain the status quo," the press release read.
The party vowed to continue the pursuit of the limitation of labor migration, saying that "the constitutional mandate requiring autonomous management of immigration has still not been implemented, so the UDC will continue to fight."
"[The party] will also resolutely oppose the political forces which will be tempted to interpret the 'no to the limitation initiative' as a 'yes to the institutional framework agreement' with the EU. The UDC will fight with all its might this treaty of submission to the EU and any further attachment of Switzerland to the EU," the party said.
Another reason for the initiative to fail was that people nowadays are more concerned about the pandemic than issues like immigration, according to analyst Slobodan Despot, who used to be a communication adviser to UDC State Councilor Oskar Freysinger in the 2013-2017 period.
"The UDC is disappointed by the referendum result, but they realize that this year people are just thinking about the epidemic. Everyone stays at home and they probably feel that immigration issues have passed on the 'backburner,'" Despot told Sputnik.
Furthermore, the analyst opined that the SVP/UDC was no longer a "real opposition party," citing the facts that the party did not oppose the Swiss government's "muddled" COVID-19 policies despite having many grounds for it and also supported the purchase of new military jets from Boeing during the referendum.
"They no longer play their role of opposition. Switzerland keeps the facade of their historic neutrality, but the Swiss army is de facto fully integrated into the NATO system. They wouldn't think of buying Chinese or Russian planes," Despot added.
"The SVP is right to be concerned about Switzerland's agreements with the European Union. They have already lost a lot as a place of international exchange and the EU insists on imposing its choices on its partners, particularly in matters of immigration, which Switzerland has every interest in categorically refusing, like Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland or Hungary already have," the analyst added.
