I’ve had a passing interest in the UK’s relationship to the Schengen group within (and outside) the EU for a while now. Schengen is a an agreement, originally stand-alone but now incorporated into EU law, which entails the removal of internal border checks. As well as being able to walk across borders with nothing more than a sign to mark the transition, Schengen makes it possible to fly from (say) Brussels to Berlin as – effectively – a domestic passenger. At no stage are you required to show a passport – unless you’re using it as your photo ID for the airline.

Schengen also means that the states involved share a common set of visa rules to external applicants, and a common visa issued in one Schengen state is valid in any other.

Needless to say, it makes a lot of sense. It better reflects personal freedoms of movement granted by EU rights, and from a practical point of view, eliminates passport check queues from a great many flights. Recently, Switzerland joined, and although there are some special issues (e.g. the land border with Liechtenstein, and Switzerland’s non-membership of the EU customs zone), it works very well.

Which makes the UK and Ireland’s positions increasingly curious. They are the only EU member states that have permanent exemptions from the border removal measures. Could things be about to change?

“But Britain’s luck may be on the wane. The political and legal problems associated with its half-in, half-out status are growing. Although the country retains its own border controls, its police officers are allowed to follow criminal suspects into the Schengen area if they are on a surveillance mission. It has also been agreed that the UK’s national police computer can connect to the Schengen-area police database. But the Schengen countries object to either Britain or Ireland having access to valuable data on who is refused entry to the Schengen area, or to having a vote on the board of the EU’s border agency since they do not share the pain of maintaining a common EU border. When Britain tried to challenge this in 2008, the European court of justice (ECJ) ruled in favour of the Schengen countries.”

Nothing will likely change until the Labour Party administration in Westminster get off their security power-trip, but nonetheless, there are some interesting observations in this article.

Read more at the Centre for European Reform.

Hmm… Good question Sir, says SF1. The short answer is somewhere between “business as usual” and “a pretence of normality, but ultimately being fucked”.

If you speak German, and can decipher Swiss German, there’s a pretty interesting discussion of what would actually happen if Switzerland’s citizenry votes ‘no’ to the extension of bilateral personal freedom of movement treaties with the EU to Bulgaria and Romania on the 8th February.

You’ll find it here.

Christoph Blocher does speak briefly in the video from around 0:38 in – to a group of fawning supporters no less – but you should be alright if you put your fingers in your ears, sprinkle a circle of salt round your computer, and keep some wooden steaks nearby.

My previous posts on this matter can be found hiar, hiar, aaand hiar.

Since being back in Zürich after a winter break, I’ve noticed that the political parties have stepped up their campaigning on both sides on the upcoming Swiss-EU freedom of movement bilateral treaty referendum. I discussed the issues surrounding the vote in a prior post.

I didn’t expect the SVP, Switzerland’s resident crazy right-wing party, to go at it with such gusto, but they have. In fact, they’re making the same mistake as they made a couple of years ago with the “Sicherheit schaffen” black sheep poster, using out-and-out racism and xenophobia to attempt to sway the tide in their favour.

Here’s the poster they’ve been sticking up around the place:

© 2008 Bunch of assholes. Caption reads "Free identity cards/passports for all? No."

Nice and friendly, eh? The racism is especially barbed since the vote arose specifically because of the SVP’s rejection of the policy of extending the same privileges they currently give to other EU citizens to Bulgarians and Romanians.

On the other hand, here is the totally awesome Liberal poster (sorry the photo’s a bit crap – I was in a hurry):

Liberal Party poster for the Switzerland-EU freedom of movement agreement referendum. Caption reads "Don't destroy our bilateral route! YES to jobs! YES to the bilateral agreement"

I like the general Wile-E-Coyote vibe of it, with the dastardly and suicidal SVP nutters with hammers. The nutter on the left bears a reasonable resemblance to Christoph Blocher, SVP leader.

But what I particularly like is that it invokes just about every Swiss stereotype with glee: the mountains, the railway, fact that the train is painted red and has a huge cross on the front. That the train’s cargo is a bar of chocolate, a slice of cheese and a watch is total genius, and I just know that it was done almost without the slightest hint of irony.

Brilliant.

Christian Democrat (CVP) poster on the Freizügigkeit referendum. Photo taken by me.

On the 8th February 2009 Switzerland will vote on a referendum which will determine whether the state continues or re-negotiates its freedom of movement agreement with the European Union, of which it is not currently a member.

I point out the latter, rather obvious fact of its non-membership because in the past year, the relationship between the EU and Switzerland has progressed from something best described as blissful ignorance punctuated by the occasional bust-up, to more of a on-and-off relationship with equally common instances of shouting matches and group-hugging.

Switzerland has now agreed to cooperate with the EU (partly thanks to various scandals involving smuggling diamonds in toothpaste, corrupt principality banks, and common-or-garden tax evasion [PDF link]) in reform of its corporate tax system, which is currently home to thousands of Briefkastenfirmen (letterbox firms) who legally reside in Switzerland for tax purposes.

It also currently implementing the final parts of the Schengen open-borders agreement: something quite important given that it is, save from Leichtenstein, geographically surrounded on all sides by the Schengen zone. And out of character too: Switzerland is the first non-EU state to join Schengen.

The 8th February referendum is particularly interesting because of the unity that the EU is showing against the position of some parts of the Swiss government. It was brought about by the youth wing of the SVP, (the Swiss People’s Party yes, that SVP), somewhat against the relatively better judgement of older members. And its purpose is very clearly to deny to Bulgarians and Romanians the same freedoms that Switzerland grants to members of the EU-25, including Schengen open borders.

The Commission has so far held relatively firm against the idea that Switzerland should be allowed to discriminate, knowing that Berne has a lot more to lose in the cessation of freedom of movement than the EU has to lose from Switzerland’s digging itself into a hole. This is one EU dispute where the intransigence isn’t caused by internal disagreements. The Commission has indicated that should the Swiss referendum return a ‘no’, Switzerland would be thrown out of Schengen.

Switzerland is highly dependent on EU markets and labour. Out of a population of just under seven million, a full million live in Switzerland under freedom of movement agreements – originally conducted under a combination of various bilateral agreements and EFTA, and from 2007 onwards with the EU itself under the freedom of movement treaty.

So everybody with any sense knows that ending the freedom of movement agreement is a non-option. The economy wouldn’t quite implode, but a situation in which about a quarter of your labour force is suddenly placed into legal limbo, and nobody knows what the hell is supposed to happen when crossing the border, cannot be good. At the same time, few expect voters to actually cease the agreement. The referendum is seen, presumably, by its proponents as a bargaining chip aimed at re-negotiation.

The trouble is, Switzerland is in a very poor bargaining position. The agreement is already in place, for one thing. For another, it isn’t a member state, and Bulgaria and Romania are.  It seems that the two eastern states enjoy so much support on this issue that they haven’t had to kick up a stink about it yet, but they can and will if things look dire by late January.

And therein lies the problem: the vote could go either way. All the sensible parties are reminding Swiss people off all the Siemens and Alstom trains, BMW and Opel cars, IKEA kitchens and fine French wines that roll across the border into Switzerland every year, and of the world’s largest consumer market, to which Swiss firms get nearly unrestricted access. The SVP are currently too busy associating with Holocaust deniers to show a coherent front. Their website says they’re “against the expansion of the freedom of movement agreement“, which is a nice euphemism for “we want to re-write something we agreed to a few years ago to allow us to discriminate”. I wonder if their hearts are really in it. But then I remember what they can do, and what support they have. And that’s a bit scary.

The results for the canton of Zürich will be posted here. I wait with bated breath, and the slight sense of satisfaction that my own state is not the only complete crackpot when it comes to European integration