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After the agreement between the British and the EU, does Switzerland have better letters to negotiate with the Court of Justice of the European Union outside the framework agreement? Barely.
Learning from the British? Economy Minister Guy Parmelin (right) with then Commerce Minister Liam Fox.
Photo: Peter Klaunzer (Keystone)
Do we have to be grateful to Boris Johnson? Following his agreement with the EU, the British Prime Minister is electrifying the Swiss debate on the framework agreement. In their new trade deal, the British wrested a dispute settlement mechanism from Brussels that dispenses with “foreign judges” in Luxembourg. There is increasing pressure on the Federal Council to renegotiate the framework agreement with Brussels and, above all, eliminate the Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ) as the ultimate arbitrator.
But what are the possibilities and what can Switzerland learn from the British? In fact, the deal Boris Johnson is now celebrating as a victory over Brussels turned out to be comparatively weak. Britain will be completely out of the single market from 1 January, unlike Switzerland with its privileged access. Starting in the new year, the Swiss will be much closer to the EU than the British. This was not always planned in the lengthy negotiations between Brussels and London after the 2016 Brexit vote. Now the contract text is quite lengthy at 1250 pages. But the bottom line is that it is a classic business deal.
Abandonment of barrier-free access to the internal market
And here the EU has always refrained from using the ECJ as an arbitrator. Unlike Switzerland, which has adopted EU law in its bilateral market access agreements. Brussels is likely to insist on the Court of Justice of the European Communities as a last resort in the future. It is about the uniform interpretation of the internal market rules. The British pay a price for giving up barrier-free access to the internal market.
The agreement does not cover the important financial and service sectors, in which Britain accounts for 80 percent of its economic output. How thin the deal is for the British in terms of passenger and freight traffic will become apparent from January 1, when the trade deal comes into force, and the traffic jams in Dover and Calais will become a new reality. There will be no tariffs or fees. For duty-free import into the EU, UK exporters will have to laboriously demonstrate that their products were mainly manufactured in their own country. And they have to prove that their products comply with, for example, EU food safety standards or EU product standards.
Waiver of the free movement of persons
Thanks to the bilateral agreement on agricultural products and the agreement on technical barriers to trade, Swiss exporters have largely free travel. The price for the British is also high for giving up the free movement of people. It’s not just British companies that will find it more difficult to recruit skilled workers in continental Europe. British banks, insurance companies, auditors or other service providers can no longer send their specialists without bureaucracy for shorter or longer assignments in the EU internal market. And British or self-employed employees, unlike Swiss employees, will no longer be able to freely settle for a job in the EU or start a business. Your professional qualifications are no longer automatically recognized.
Does London want to fix the deal?
Sure, the Federal Council could still try to push the Brexit menu in Brussels. However, the chances of negotiating with the ECJ have not really improved. A trade agreement and the Swiss domestic market bilateral agreement are two different models. Switzerland would have to do like the British and, in the hope of a trade deal, rescind the bilateral agreements. Now the price is known.
The British are also losing access to the Schengen information system, the police database. London may very well want to improve the deal soon. It will be about being here again with an EU agency and being able to participate in a European program there. The British will then be able to learn from the Swiss how a third country is conscientiously trying from the outside to improve access to the world’s largest domestic market.
