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Swiss voters will decide on Sunday whether or not to break the agreement with the European Union on the free movement of people. The referendum campaign highlighted the divisions in Swiss society regarding the entry of foreigners, who make up a quarter of the population. The victory of the ‘Swiss Brexit’ would mean jeopardizing all other agreements with the EU. With immediate consequences for Italian cross-border travelers, who cross the border every day to go to work.
The Swiss People’s Party (SVP / Udc), a center-right formation and first party in Parliament, has led the battle to “regain control” of immigration, using slogans that recall the arguments used by pro-Brexit politicians in the United States. United during the referendum campaign that led, in 2016, to the sensational decision to leave the European Union. The right wing hopes to repeat the successful consultation for an immigration cap, which it surprisingly won with 50.33% in 2014 despite opposition from the other parties.
Polls at the moment suggest that the proposal will not be as successful. One of them found that 63% of respondents oppose the proposed border closure and 35% support it. In fact, all the other Swiss parties oppose the initiative, stressing that the break with the EU would limit export opportunities for Swiss companies, threaten employment, generate higher prices and exacerbate the skilled labor shortage.
The rights and access to the labor market of the 760,000 Swiss living abroad would also be questioned. The referendum It has already created difficulties with Brussels, which has led to the suspension of negotiations on the framework agreement that aims to regulate relations between Switzerland and the EU, which until now have been defined by a complex web of different agreements. Switzerland is not part of the EU, but is in fact deeply integrated into it, for obvious geographical and economic reasons.
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Switzerland, a country of just over 8.6 million people, has more than two million foreign residents, not counting the cross-border travelers who cross the border every day. About 76,000 Italians do it every day and it is significant that the Swiss government has never blocked their entry, even in the darkest days of the coronavirus epidemic in Lombardy. Without Italy’s doctors and nurses, Ticino’s medical care would have been in serious trouble.
