EU threatens Switzerland in the dispute over “Fortress Europe” from the passport-free zone
Brussels has threatened to kick Switzerland out of the EU’s passport-free zone if it doesn’t agree to pay more to the bloc’s border agency, as the country prepares to vote in a “Frontex-it” referendum on Sunday.
The EU decided to boost Frontex in numbers and staff after the 2015 migration crisis, meaning an increase in Swiss payments to the agency that oversees the borders of the Schengen zone.
A referendum on paying the increased payments was prompted by a coalition of NGOs and politicians from Social Democrats and Greens, who accuse Frontex of building a brutal “Fortress Europe” to keep migrants out.
The Swiss government said a no would strain already strained relations with Brussels and cost the landlocked non-EU country its place in the open borders area. The increase is expected to be approved.
Brussels expects Bern to gradually increase its payment to Frontex from £19.5m in 2021 to just over £49.5m in 2027, and the EU wants Frontex figures to be on a standing reserve of by this year Increase 10,000 border guards. Switzerland is expected to send 40 employees to the agency instead of six.
Before the vote, Ylva Johansson, the EU’s home affairs commissioner, said Schengen was not an “à la carte menu”.
“The consequence [of voting No]could mean the end of the Schengen and Dublin agreements for Switzerland,” she said. The Dublin rules allow members to send migrants back to the first member country where they arrived.
The end of Schengen would cause major headaches for Switzerland, its numerous cross-border commuters and trade with the surrounding EU members.
60 percent of Swiss exports go to the EU. 1.4 million EU citizens work in Switzerland, many of them in healthcare, and half a million Swiss live and work in the EU.
The Swiss parliament last year voted to increase Frontex payments before the left-wing coalition collected enough signatures for a referendum.
Polls showed about 69 per cent of voters would be willing to support the increased payments to Frontex, which had a total budget of just under £461m in 2021 and now has the largest budget of any EU agency.
Support has grown since the referendum was called, despite allegations that Frontex, which had a budget of just £120.5million in 2015, was involved in illegal migrant pushbacks.
At the end of April, Fabrice Leggeri resigned as head of the agency. He reportedly felt his efforts to strengthen the bloc’s external borders had been torpedoed by pro-migrant politicians and NGOs.
The Swiss will also vote in referendums on Sunday about switching from an opt-in to an opt-out system of organ donation and a law requiring streaming services like Netflix to support local film and TV productions.
The Swiss system of direct democracy with regular referendums has already been fought with the EU in the past. In 2014, voters narrowly called for quotas for EU immigrants to Switzerland, infuriating Brussels.
In 2020, voters rejected a referendum calling for the end of free movement with the EU, with nearly 62 percent saying they wanted to keep it.
The EU took a harder line on Switzerland during the years of Brexit negotiations, warning the UK against “picking” on the benefits of free trade with the bloc.
In 2021, Switzerland withdrew from negotiations with the EU over a new framework agreement that would replace the patchwork of individual contracts it had signed with Brussels over the years.
The “no deal” led to warnings from the European Commission that Switzerland would gradually fall out of parts of the single market if its rules evolved and the Swiss failed to comply.
The European Commission previously blocked the Swiss exchanges from the single market in order to extort concessions from Bern during the talks.
Switzerland is a member of the EU internal market, but has no say in the design of these rules and enjoys freedom of movement. It is not a member of the EU Customs Union, meaning it can negotiate its own free trade agreements.