EU threatens to kick Switzerland out of passport-free zone
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Brussels has threatened to throw Switzerland out of the EU’s passport-free zone if it does not back paying more to the bloc’s border agency, as the country prepares to vote in a “Frontex-it” referendum on Sunday.
The Telegraph reports that the EU decided to boost Frontex numbers and staff after the 2015 migration crisis, which means an increase in Swiss payments to the agency, which polices the borders of the Schengen Zone.
A referendum on whether to pay the increased payments was triggered by an alliance of NGOs and politicians from the Social Democrats and Green Party, which accuses Frontex of building a brutal “Fortress Europe” to keep migrants out.
The Swiss government said a No vote would put tension on already strained relations with Brussels as well as costing the landlocked non-EU country its place in the open-borders area. The rise is expected to be approved.
Brussels expects Bern to increase its £19.5m 2021 payment to Frontex in stages to just over £49.5m in 2027 and the EU wants to boost Frontex numbers to a standing corps of 10,000 border guards by that year. Switzerland is expected to second 40 staff to the agency, up from six.
Ahead of 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 be the end of the Schengen and Dublin accords for Switzerland,” she said. Dublin rules allow members to send migrants back to the first member country they arrived in.
The end of Schengen would pose a major headache for Switzerland, its large number of cross-border workers and trade with the EU members which surround the country.
Sixty per cent of Swiss exports are to the EU. Around 1.4million EU citizens work in Switzerland, many in the health service, while half a million Swiss live and work in the EU.
The Swiss parliament voted to increase the Frontex payments last year before the Left-wing coalition collected enough signatures for a referendum.
Polls showed about 69 per cent of voters would be prepared to back 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.
The Swiss will also vote in referendums on moving from an opt-in to an opt-out system of organ donation and on a law to make streaming services such as Netflix support local film and TV production on Sunday.
Switzerland is a member of the EU’s Single Market, although it has no say in how those rules are drafted, and has freedom of movement. It is not a member of the EU’s Customs Union, which means it can make its own free trade deals.
