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Switzerland’s relationship with the EU is one of the most contentious and tangled domestic issues, involving various actors. Before the summer holidays, the European Parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee passed a report on Switzerland that has not yet been made public.
The Austrian MEP Lukas Mandl, member of the European People’s Party, is responsible for the report on Switzerland. Mandl is generally well-disposed toward Switzerland. All the more interesting are those passages that call on Switzerland to do something or speak plain language. For example around the Ukraine war.
A series of demands on Switzerland
Here, the foreign policy committee of the EU Parliament encourages Switzerland to intensify military cooperation with the EU. Or he calls on Switzerland to make changes to the law in order to confiscate Russian funds. And the Committee notes with regret that Switzerland is preventing the return of arms to Ukraine.
Mandl says, “all countries in which ammunition is produced [sind] invited to get creative about how to support this legitimate and necessary national defense in the sense of the values represented by Europe. »
Keyword horizontal access
A second important topic for Switzerland are institutional issues. Here’s an expression that stands out in the report. There is talk of a «horizontal approach». In concrete terms, this means that if Switzerland wants a package with different agreements instead of a framework agreement, that should be possible.
This must be consistent with the fact that the European Court of Justice, which makes the internal market possible in the first place, is of course also recognized.
But in the end, the same institutional rules should apply in every agreement. Lukas Mandl emphasizes that anyone who wants access to the EU internal market has to get involved. “This must be consistent with the fact that the European Court of Justice, which makes the internal market possible in the first place, is of course also recognized. That’s part of the horizontal approach.”
Expiry of the negotiating mandate requires quick action
Nothing would work without the European Court of Justice. Finally, there is a third point in the report. The EU’s new negotiating mandate is due to expire after five years.
“This is a call to all executive levels to negotiate and achieve results within a reasonable time frame. And I think history justifies seeing it that way. The framework agreement, which ultimately failed, took around seven years and that was obviously too long. »
The plenary session of the EU Parliament is likely to approve this report in autumn.