After rejecting the framework agreement with the European Union last month, Switzerland must now choose the model for interacting with the bloc’s internal market, says the EU ambassador to Switzerland. In an opinion piece published in Le Temps newspaper on Friday, Petros Mavromichalis warned that the status quo was not an option for the EU. EU framework agreement Citing “substantial differences” on the deal, on May 26 the Swiss government decided to bin a controversial institutional agreement on relations with the European Union. The decision to walk away meant the end of seven years of efforts between Switzerland and the EU to craft an overarching treaty to replace the more than 120 bilateral deals which have regulated relations for the past decades. The government cited a lack of agreement on three key points which have hampered progress since a deal was drafted in 2018: salary protection, state aid rules, and the access of EU citizens to Swiss social security benefits. “For...
