The ongoing conflict with the European Commission is eroding Switzerland’s cooperation with the EU faster than many expected, a new study by Avenir Suisse shows. Business and science are reacting with increasing uncertainty.
The EU still refuses to associate Switzerland with its research programs.
In many Swiss companies, there is increasing uncertainty as to whether they can still assume that they will have equal access to the European internal market from Switzerland in the future. In a joint letter this week, the umbrella organization of Swiss business, Economiesuisse, and the Swiss Employers’ Association urgently called on the Federal Council to unblock European policy.
In its erosion monitor published on Friday, the liberal think tank Avenir Suisse shows that these are not just empty phrases from lobbyists. Above all, it is the rapidly accelerating exclusion from European scientific networks and the loss of mutual recognition of equivalence that worries the companies.
In case of doubt, relocations threaten
This is exemplified in the Northwestern Switzerland region. The region is not home to the research-intensive ETH, but the University of Basel, the PSI in Würenlingen and the universities of applied sciences. These are currently involved in 764 European research projects. If the EU refuses to allow Switzerland to be associated with its research programs for a longer period of time, these will be endangered. Individual European research grants are also particularly important as an award for leading young researchers, of which 69 are currently awarded in north-western Switzerland.
Research is important to companies because of the pool of leading innovative minds it attracts. But also because the companies themselves are directly involved in around a sixth of the research projects. It was unanimously agreed that purely Swiss projects and finances could not replace them, because the relevant results were increasingly being developed in cross-border European networks. In case of doubt, Switzerland is threatened with industry relocating its research projects to the EU area.
The construction, machine and pharmaceutical industries are also affected
The fact that the EU Commission is categorically refusing to update the mutual recognition of technical standards and product norms due to the dispute with Switzerland is also causing increasing consternation. After medical technology, this affects the diagnostics industry, where the EU revised its requirements on May 26th. Because it is no longer officially guaranteed that they also comply with the Swiss regulations, the equivalence of diagnostic products manufactured and approved in Switzerland, such as PCR tests, is no longer recognized. This makes them more expensive and makes production in Switzerland less attractive.
In March, the EU also revised its Construction Products Regulation to improve the protection of health and the environment. This means that the Swiss construction industry is about to face similar problems. Before the end of this year, the EU also wants to supplement the technical regulations in the machine industry with specifications for the use of artificial intelligence. The most drastic factor for Northwestern Switzerland, however, is the danger that mutual recognition in the pharmaceutical industry will also be lost. Interpharma estimates the annual additional costs if it is eliminated at half a billion francs per year.
In addition to the business associations, the cantons of Aargau and Basel now consider their concerns in the federal government’s European policy to be not taken seriously enough. Avenir Suisse therefore proposes greater participation in a new federal-cantonal integration and European committee.