Long time no update.. I know.
So, here I am...back from Snowattack - skiing week in France - it deserves an other post... ;)
On February 8th there was a referendum held in Switzerland for extending the right of EU citizens to live and work in Switzerland...actuallly it was for renewing the already existing agreement allowing migrant workers into Switzerland and extending it to Bulgaria and Romania.
Despite all the negative campaign, swiss voted yes...
59,6% of the voters backed this deal.
It was quiet a big deal.. as the EU has already indicated, if Switzerland would vote "No", the EU would use the guillotine clause and will cancel also the first package of bilateral agreements.
There were some very interesting negative campaigns as well... mainly by the ultra-rightist Swiss People's Party.
I understand that in this economic downturn swiss are also afraid of a huge wave of immigrants, and that poor romanians and bulgarians are taking the jobs instead of the swiss, since eastern europeans are cheaper labour.
However, the free movement goes on the other way around too... Swiss people are allowed to work in the EU as well, and cancelling all the bilateral agreement would not help the trade within the EU too...
Actually, it goes like this:
- you earn the most if you graduated in St. Gallen University
- then the rest of the swiss universities
- then the french people
- then the rest of the world...
So, of course, the fear of huge influx of eastern europeans is understandable...
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