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Swiss set for big day in Brussels
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May 19, 2004 00:42]
| www.swissinfo.org
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Swiss cabinet ministers will be in Brussels on Wednesday to finalise a new set of bilateral accords with the European Union.
The two sides reached agreement on the nine dossiers after lengthy wrangling, but uncertainties remain over the Schengen accord on cross-border crime and an EU savings tax directive. The meeting is set for 11 o’clock at Breydel, in the European Commission building. Attending will be Swiss president Joseph Deiss, foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, and finance minister Hans-Rudolf Merz.
Irish deputy prime minister Mary Harney, the president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi and the foreign affairs commissioner, Chris Patten, will be representing the EU.
The meeting is expected to be brief – less than an hour - and will involve the two parties giving their official agreement to the compromise accord, reached on May 13, in which the EU agreed to guarantee Swiss banking secrecy in exchange for Bern’s cooperation in taxing EU residents’ savings.
This should signal the end of the political negotiations on the second cycle of bilateral agreements.
Wrangling
Contrary to the first round of bilateral agreements, which took seven years to negotiate, this latest round took just two years. But it was characterized by wrangling between the two sides.
The final act will be the signing of the nine agreements, which include closer cooperation between the EU and Switzerland on security and asylum, the fight against international smuggling and customs fraud.
This is expected to take place in the autumn after the finishing touches have been applied.
Officials have said that the process might be further delayed as the accords have to be translated into all the official languages of the EU, which have increased since the ten new members joined.
It will be up to the European Council – which represents the member states’ national governments – to give the package the final go-ahead.
The accords should then come into force immediately and for the EU, at least, the process will come to an end.
Uncertainties
But there are still some issues that need to be resolved and which could potentially threatened the success of these landmark agreements.
For its part, the EU still has to finish negotiations with other external countries, especially with associated territories such as the islands of Jersey, Guernsey and the Caribbean.
These negotiations are said to be progressing but last minute problems cannot be excluded. The EU has fixed a date of June 30 by which time it wants the directive adopted.
Before that European ministers are set to have what is expected to be a stormy meeting on June 2 in which they will be approving two annex declarations, which are linked to the compromise deal reached with Switzerland.
The first one grants Luxembourg the same rights as Switzerland on banking secrecy and the second, put forward by five countries – France, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and Spain – serves to remind members that the objective of the EU savings tax directive is the exchange of information and not the deduction at source for taxes.
Ratification in Switzerland
Switzerland has yet to decide on the procedure for ratifying the accords – it could be that they will be put to referendum.
The accord most under threat is the Schengen agreement. The rightwing Swiss People’s Party has already announced its intention to hold a referendum on Schengen.
For this reason, Switzerland has been granted a two-year deadline to apply present and future legislation.
But a referendum on whether to extend the free movement of people accord to the ten new members of the EU is more risky, as it would call into question the first round of the bilateral agreements.
swissinfo, Barbara Speziali in Brussels |
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May 18, 2004 00:32]
| http://www.swissinfo.org
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| www.swissinfo.org
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| www.swissinfo.org
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| www.swissinfo.org
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| www.swissinfo.org
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| www.swissinfo.org
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| www.swissinfo.org
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