3rd Bi­lat­eral Pack­age EU-Switzer­land: What is it about?

Today, the Fed­eral Coun­cil adopted the draft ne­go­ti­at­ing man­date for a third pack­age of bi­lat­eral agree­ments with the EU on par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Sin­gle Mar­ket. economiesu­isse wel­comes this im­por­tant step to­wards se­cur­ing and fur­ther de­vel­op­ing the bi­lat­eral path with the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU). But what does the 3rd Bi­lat­eral Pack­age con­tain and how should the in­di­vid­ual el­e­ments con­tained be as­sessed? To clar­ify these cen­tral ques­tions, economiesu­isse has drawn up a new pol­icy brief.

A whole new pack­age is to be ne­go­ti­ated

The 3rd Bi­lat­eral Pack­age in­cludes up­dat­ing the five ex­ist­ing in­ter­nal mar­ket agree­ments on the free move­ment of per­sons (AFMP), the re­moval of tech­ni­cal bar­ri­ers to trade ("MRA"), land trans­port, air trans­port and agri­cul­ture. In ad­di­tion, two new in­ter­nal mar­ket agree­ments are to be con­cluded for elec­tric­ity and food safety. In the areas of re­search, ed­u­ca­tion and health, the pack­age pro­vides for co­op­er­a­tion with the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU). Fur­ther­more, the re­sump­tion of the reg­u­la­tory di­a­logue in the fi­nan­cial sec­tor and a con­tin­u­a­tion of the Swiss co­he­sion con­tri­bu­tion are planned.

The 3rd Bi­lat­eral Pack­age is the right way for­ward

An analy­sis of the 3rd Bi­lat­eral Pack­age and its in­di­vid­ual el­e­ments shows that the pos­i­tive as­pects for Swiss busi­ness clearly out­weigh the neg­a­tive ones. Swiss diplo­macy was able to achieve im­por­tant im­prove­ments to­gether with the EU in the ex­ploratory talks. The main ob­jec­tives de­fined by economiesu­isse with a view to the up­com­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions (se­cure par­tic­i­pa­tion in the EU in­ter­nal mar­ket, re­ver­sal of the ero­sion of the bi­lat­eral path, new agree­ments, and co­op­er­a­tion) can be achieved with the new pack­age. It is now im­por­tant that the few out­stand­ing points are clar­i­fied quickly. How­ever, one thing is al­ready clear based on the cur­rent state of knowl­edge: Swiss busi­ness is in a much bet­ter po­si­tion with the 3rd Bi­lat­eral Pack­age in place than with­out it.

Dossier­poli­tik Bi­lat­er­als III