Bundeshaus

Bi­lat­eral Pack­age: An op­por­tu­nity for Switzer­land

economiesu­isse wel­comes the fact that the Swiss gov­erne­ment today adopted the draft man­date for ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU). Swiss busi­ness sup­ports the Fed­eral Coun­cil in its en­deav­ours to se­cure and fur­ther de­velop the bi­lat­eral ap­proach. Reg­u­lated re­la­tions and legal cer­tainty in re­la­tions with the EU are es­sen­tial for Switzer­land as a busi­ness lo­ca­tion. The 3rd Bi­lat­eral Pack­age is there­fore the right way for­ward. We must now move ahead quickly and, after con­sult­ing the for­eign pol­icy com­mit­tees of the Swiss par­lia­ment and the can­tons, begin ne­go­ti­a­tions with the EU.

At its meet­ing today, the Fed­eral Coun­cil adopted the draft ne­go­ti­at­ing man­date for a third pack­age of agree­ments with the EU. The 3rd Bi­lat­eral Pack­age in­cludes, among other things, the up­dat­ing of the five ex­ist­ing and the con­clu­sion of two new agree­ments with the EU al­low­ing Switzer­land the par­tic­i­pa­tion in spe­cific areas of the Sin­gle Mar­ket as well as co­op­er­a­tion in re­search, ed­u­ca­tion and health­care.

"economiesu­isse wel­comes the adop­tion of the draft man­date and sup­ports an early start to ne­go­ti­a­tions with the EU," says Christoph Mäder, Pres­i­dent of economiesu­isse, adding: "From economiesu­isse's per­spec­tive, the 3rd Bi­lat­eral Pack­age can achieve the ob­jec­tives of Swiss busi­ness. These in­clude, in par­tic­u­lar, se­cur­ing Switzer­land's long-term par­tic­i­pa­tion in the EU in­ter­nal mar­ket, strength­en­ing se­cu­rity of sup­ply by con­clud­ing an elec­tric­ity agree­ment and par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Eu­ro­pean re­search pro­gramme Hori­zon Eu­rope."

In a next step, the draft man­date will be re­ferred to the For­eign Af­fairs Com­mit­tees of the Fed­eral As­sem­bly (FAC) and the Con­fer­ence of Can­tonal Gov­ern­ments (CCG) for con­sul­ta­tion. Ne­go­ti­a­tions should then begin as quickly as pos­si­ble in view of the Eu­ro­pean elec­tions in sum­mer 2024 to avoid un­nec­es­sary de­lays.