The European Union has given the nod to Switzerland’s compromise on its controversial referendum result demanding immigration control.
On Thursday the EU Commission said that the Swiss parliament’s proposal marked “progress” on the matter. The new law, it said, “should make it possible to preserve the integrity of the contractual commitments that link the EU and Switzerland”.
Referenda in Switzerland are more the norm than the exception. The legally-binding results must be implemented within three years.
A majority vote in February 2014 called for quotas on immigrants coming from EU countries. Switzerland already has regulations governing immigration from non-EU nations.
This set the country on a collision course with the EU’s policy of free movement of people. Switzerland is not an EU member but has bilateral agreements guaranteeing this as well as the free movement of goods, services and capital. The EU is Switzerland’s largest trading partner.
Last week, the Swiss parliament adopted a revised version of the initiative which would see that unemployed Swiss nationals would be given job preference over applicants from the EU without imposing actual limits on immigration as per the referendum’s call.
Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Commission, said the proposal guaranteed the “full integrity one of our founding principles: the free movement of people”.
But the Commission also said there were still areas to be clarified.
“Questions over access to information about vacant positions and the rights of cross-border workers are of particular importance,” said the statement.
But the saga is not likely to end here. An initiative with the required number of signatures is calling for a rerun of the original referendum. Those behind it are hopeful that a rerun will repeal the anti-immigration decision and preserve Switzerland’s existing arrangements with the EU.
The country’s Federal Council said on Wednesday it would instead ask the public to vote on a counter-proposal with two options – one that any controls should take into account existing international agreements and two that the original referendum result does not have to be implemented within three years.
It appears likely that people in Switzerland will be presented with another referendum.
