“Negotiating always involves the risk of failure”

SonntagsBlick: Mr. Federal President, in Brussels you emphasized the differences between Switzerland and the EU. The EU Commission again stated that Switzerland could not exclude the EU Citizens Directive, wage protection or state aid from the text of the contract. Do you still believe that this framework agreement will ever be signed?
Guy Parmelin:
The Federal Council has always said that it is ready to sign this framework agreement if there are satisfactory solutions to wage protection, the Union Citizens’ Directive and state aid. We have already made many concessions. Just think of the dynamic legal adoption or the dispute settlement mechanism with the involvement of the ECJ. On the three open points that I just mentioned, the positions are still far apart. We are now analyzing the situation and the Federal Council will then decide.

Is the Federal Council ultimately prepared to break off the negotiations and explain to the EU that the framework agreement has failed?
A negotiation always involves the risk of failure. But we’re not that far yet. Both sides now want to examine the starting position very carefully. This also includes consulting the parliamentary commissions and the cantons.