Pa­ra­me­ters for a ne­go­ti­a­tion man­date: The course is set for the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of bi­lat­eral re­la­tions

The Fed­eral Coun­cil has adopted the key pa­ra­me­ters for a ne­go­ti­at­ing man­date with the EU (see press re­lease). These form the basis for con­tin­u­ing the ex­ploratory talks with the EU. In doing so, the Swiss gov­ern­ment has cho­sen a broad pack­age ap­proach: A whole pack­age of in­ter­nal mar­ket and co­op­er­a­tion agree­ments is to be ne­go­ti­ated. By adopt­ing the key pa­ra­me­ters for deep­en­ing the talks with the EU on a new ne­go­ti­at­ing pack­age, the Fed­eral Coun­cil has taken an im­por­tant step to­wards the sub­se­quent launch of ne­go­ti­a­tions (see for the key pa­ra­me­ters the info sheet).

economiesu­isse wel­comes the Swiss gov­ern­ment's pack­age ap­proach (see info sheet pack­age ap­proach). It also al­lows so­lu­tions to be found for dossiers that are cur­rently blocked, such as the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Switzer­land in the EU's Hori­zon Eu­rope re­search pro­gramme and the Eras­mus pro­gramme. economiesu­isse is pleased to note that so­lu­tions are on the hori­zon for var­i­ous dossiers that are im­por­tant for Switzer­land, namely con­ern­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion of EU state aid rules, the EU Cit­i­zen­ship Di­rec­tive and the ac­com­pa­ny­ing mea­sures to to guar­an­tee wage pro­tec­tion in Switzer­land. It is also im­por­tant for Swiss busi­ness that the out­stand­ing points, par­tic­u­larly in the agree­ments in the areas of elec­tric­ity and health, are clar­i­fied as quickly as pos­si­ble.

The Fed­eral Coun­cil is now called upon to con­clude the ex­ploratory talks with the EU this year and to adopt a cor­re­spond­ing ne­go­ti­at­ing man­date by the end of the year. On the basis of the de­tailed ex­ploratory talks, it should be ex­pected that the sub­se­quent ne­go­ti­a­tions can pro­ceed quickly.

One thing is clear: time is press­ing. With­out a reg­u­lated re­la­tion­ship with Switzer­land's most im­por­tant trad­ing part­ner and with­out legal cer­tainty, there is a threat of fur­ther ero­sion of the bi­lat­eral path to the detri­ment of Swiss com­pa­nies and with se­ri­ous con­se­quences for Switzer­land as a busi­ness lo­ca­tion