Twenty Five Good Reasons to Say YES on May 17

Popular Initiative Opposing Free Access for Europeans

to the Swiss Labor Market (AFMP)

25 Good Reasons to Say YES on May 17

Fran?ois Schaller

https://blogs.letemps.ch/francois-schaller/2020/02/09/25-bonnes-raisons-de-dire-oui-le-17-mai-prochain/

End the free access for Europeans to the Swiss labor market (the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons or AFMP). Stop the parallelism of the Bilateral Agreements I (“guillotine clause”). Abandon Switzerland’s “bilateral way” towards integration. Achieve normalization and a new, lasting stability in our relations with the European Union. Economics is important here, but it is not the only factor. 

On the Free Movement of Persons

Without the free movement of persons, Switzerland would retain the freedom to welcome workers who have the skills and talent the country needs, whether as residents of border areas, as future residents of Switzerland, or as actors working in finance, health care, education, social services, and so on.

Switzerland would simply take its own immigration policy in hand.

The country would be completely free to set up an effective, bureaucratically streamlined system to regulate European immigration into Switzerland. The developed world has many examples of high-performing regulatory models.

Of the twenty most competitive countries in the world, as identified by the World Economic Forum, ten are not European and have an autonomous immigration policy. This includes the top three. If Switzerland were added, that would become eleven.

For companies and other institutions, the complications and supplementary administrative costs would be negligible in relation to their total payroll.

Switzerland would be able to put an end to the preference in its labor market for Europeans over citizens of the rest of the world.

For example, non-European refugees in Switzerland (whose training and integration are supported by significant investment by the country) would no longer face discrimination in the Swiss labor market in regard to Europeans. 

Since limits have been set on global immigration to Switzerland (as they have been in Europe and elsewhere), the Swiss economy would have less trouble in recruiting non-European specialists and executives to support its substantial business dealings with the world (more than 50% of Swiss exports are not European). This would also apply to universities and to research.

This could lead to a greater diversity of nationalities in companies and institutions, and to a greater openness in the culture of the Swiss workplace.

There would be no need whatsoever to return to the old system of seasonal work permits (which is legitimately despised by the left). Further, the current free movement framework already includes a short-term work permit (the L permit), and this could be maintained (or not).

Reciprocity:

- Since 2007 (when free movement began), there has been an average migration (net immigration) of 48,000 Europeans to Switzerland per year. This is equivalent to the combined populations of Nyon, Gland, and Morges. 

(Average net immigration of non-Europeans: 21,000, or the population of Vevey. The total average net immigration equals the population of the cities of La Chaux-de-Fonds plus Neuchatel each year.)  

- European immigration and frontier work would remain relatively significant without free movement and with autonomous regulation of migration.

- By contrast, each year, only a few hundred Swiss citizens without dual nationality request and receive permits to work in Europe, something that can clearly be attributed to wage gaps.

- To respond to this enormous imbalance, Switzerland could request that its citizens without dual nationality (who nevertheless do want to work in Europe) receive facilitated access to the European labor market.

As a principle, the free movement of persons is archaic. It places the labor market on the same level as the capital, commodity, and service markets. For states and their economic policies, labor and salaries are not mere factors of production. Instead, they represent the very purpose of the economy.

On the Bilateral Agreements I

Switzerland could begin by asking the Europeans to annul the legal (guillotine) clause, thereby invalidating the other six Bilateral Agreements I, which would then need to be approved individually. Our case: three of these agreements are almost exclusively beneficial to Europeans, and two others (“Technical obstacles to trade” and “Agriculture”) are highly skewed in favor of the European Union. The remaining agreement (“Research”) is relatively balanced.

If refused, Switzerland could negotiate with the EU (as Brussels did with London) for a transition period during which the Bilateral Agreements I would remain in effect and the two parties could discuss a path forward, one that would not include either free movement or a guillotine clause.

If the European Union were to retaliate and threaten to start a trade war with Switzerland (by nullifying Bilateral I or other agreements), the federal administration could set up obstacles by raising import duties on European motor vehicles (a market worth 15 billion Swiss francs in 2019), targeting, in particular, the least environmentally friendly models.

In the worst-case scenario, without the Bilateral Agreements I, the administrative costs and loss of earnings for Swiss companies would not reach 0.5% of the value of total exports to Europe (see previous articles). In return, the Confederation and the cantons could provide tax or other administrative relief to affected companies. 

Switzerland would continue to be associated with European research programs (like other non-member countries). The country would only forfeit the possibility of coordinating major projects itself.   

On Switzerland’s Bilateral Way

Ending the free access for Europeans to the Swiss labor market would amount to ending the country’s bilateral way towards integration in the EU. EU officials have been considering this themselves since the Brexit referendum in June 2016 and Switzerland’s official withdrawal of its application for EU membership one month later.

It would mean that Brussels’ Swiss dossier would no longer fall under the European Enlargement Policy and would instead be handled by the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP, overseen by Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi).

After a turbulent period (particularly of verbal clashes), relations between Switzerland, the European Union, and its member states would be clarified and tensions would be eased. Switzerland could no longer be continually suspected of abuse and double-dealing (being both inside and outside, “having its cake and eating it too,” and so on.).

The Swiss economy would get what it is looking for: stable relations with the EU. In other words, there would be trade partnerships among neighbor countries, with partial and reciprocal access to their respective markets, rather than a progressive “participation” in the EU Single Market; the latter is based on free movement, which includes, notably, employment rights and regulations.

If the free movement of persons, which Europeans hold to be “constitutive of European citizenship” (Emmanuel Macron), is maintained, the Swiss economy will never achieve the stability, security, and visibility that it needs. It has not had these for the last fifteen years (since the beginning of discussions for a new institutional phase).

Once free of the free movement of persons, Switzerland would be on the same level as the United Kingdom, but with the addition of the Schengen and Dublin agreements (which would not be challenged). Its agreements with neighboring countries (concerning fishing, transportation, border management, and so on) would necessarily be different.

Switzerland’s reference points in discussions with the EU would become as follows:

1) the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada, 90% of which has been provisionally applied since 2017 (while waiting for all 28 member states to approve the final text). This is equivalent to the Bilaterals I as regards mutual recognition of technical standards in key areas such as medical devices and technologies (to name just one).

2) the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the United States, an innovative, finalized proposal that has been suspended as a result of European (especially French) opposition  to certain investment security and agricultural measures. It too is equivalent to the Bilaterals I as regards mutual recognition of technical standards in key areas such as medical devices and technologies (etc.).

On Timing

Want to put an end to Europeans’ free access to the Swiss labor market (AFMP) and Switzerland’s bilateral way towards integration? Take matters into your own hands on May 17 and vote for a speedy simplification and clarification of our ambiguous, confused, and chronically conflictual relations with the European Union.

Since Switzerland is no longer trying to join the EU, the bilateral way has become a meaningless road to nowhere.

The Swiss economy remains unable to provide a clear and concrete rationale in favor of the bilateral way, which has no substantial benefits and only causes trouble.

If we do not act on May 17, we will have to do so later. The longer we wait, the more complicated and painful it will be for Switzerland to normalize and rebalance our relations with the European Union.