Swiss-EU Relations

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Overview: Instruments, Issues and Challenges of Swiss-EU Relations

This text provides an overview of the historical development of Swiss-EU relations while pointing to institutional peculiarities of the agreements between Switzerland and the EU and highlighting specific challenges, such as the increasing relevance of EU legislation. >> more

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From Liberalisation to Cooperation: The Diverse Purposes of Swiss-EU Agreements

Swiss-EU agreements liberalise cross-border movements and enable cooperation in different issue areas and between different actors, ranging from citizens to universities to authorities. The diversity of agreement purposes in Swiss-EU relations is often underestimated by the primary focus on market access. >> more​

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Switzerland’s Sectoral Access to the EU’s Single Market

There is a part of Switzerland’s relationship with the EU that is almost uncontroversial in Switzerland: the country’s sectoral access to the EU’s Single Market. This analysis provides an overview based on the four freedoms, the basic principles of the EU’s Single Market, and gives some hints about how the specifics of Switzerland’s market access can be explained. >> more

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Functioning of Swiss-EU Agreements: Hidden Dynamics and their Reasons

Drawing on the political function and the legal form of the agreements between Switzerland and the EU, this text analyses which Swiss-EU agreements are frequently revised and why. This analysis is useful for evaluating a commitment to a dynamic incorporation of EU legislation, which most likely will be part of a new Swiss-EU institutional framework agreement. >> more

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The Logic of Negotiations between Switzerland and the EU

The negotiations of the institutional framework agreement, which is currently under review in Switzerland, were cumbersome and long. The EU pressured Switzerland by putting on hold other negotiations and repeatedly limiting its recognition of the equivalence of Swiss stock market regulations. The linkage of seemingly unrelated issues is a negotiation strategy often applied in Swiss-EU relations that in one case can favour the EU and in another Switzerland. >> more