Swiss vot­ers en­sure Schen­gen/Dublin re­mains in place

Swiss vot­ers ap­proved by 71.5 % the in­crease of Swiss con­tri­bu­tions to the bor­der pro­tec­tion agency Fron­tex. Swiss con­tri­bu­tions will con­se­quenly rise from cur­rently around 21 mil­lion euros per year today to 61 mil­lion euros in 2027. The vote was nec­es­sary be­cause left-wing and green par­ties had taken out a ref­er­en­dum against the in­crease. The rea­son for the ref­er­en­dum were ac­cu­sa­tions that Fron­tex would vi­o­late human rights dur­ing its op­er­a­tions.

In the past weeks and months, economiesu­isse has led a com­mit­ted cam­paign "Fron­tex-Schen­gen YES" through­out the coun­try, to­gether with the cen­tre-right par­ties and an al­liance of the tourism in­dus­try. Since the ex­pan­sion of Fron­tex is es­sen­tially a fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of the Schen­gen ac­quis, Switzer­land, as an as­so­ci­ate mem­ber, is obliged to also make a pro­por­tion­ate con­tri­bu­tion to se­cu­rity in Eu­rope. For Monika Rühl, Chair­woman of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board of economiesu­isse, it is clear: "Switzer­land's Schen­gen par­tic­i­pa­tion is of great im­por­tance for se­cu­rity, the econ­omy and es­pe­cially for tourism and sub­se­quent trade." Thanks to Switzer­land's con­tin­ued par­tic­i­pa­tion in Fron­tex, it can also ac­tively work to­wards im­prov­ing the work of the Eu­ro­pean bor­der pro­tec­tion agency and en­sur­ing that the fun­da­men­tal rights of refugees are re­spected at the ex­ter­nal bor­ders. It is also an op­por­tu­nity to pull to­gether again with the EU. The task now is to con­tinue Switzer­land's con­struc­tive Eu­ro­pean pol­icy. The Swiss gov­ern­ment is called upon to re­solve the cur­rent block­ade in bi­lat­eral re­la­tions as quickly as pos­si­ble.