Switzerland-EU: draft negotiating mandate approved by second committee

After the House of Representatives, the Foreign Policy Committee of the Senate has approved the general thrust of the draft negotiating mandate with the EU presented by the government in December. It welcomes the overall approach based on a package of agreements but makes additional demands. The committee was particularly critical of Switzerland’s closer institutional ties with the EU, the planned dispute settlement mechanism, the draft agreement on electricity and the adoption of the directive on European citizenship. However, after weighing up all the interests, the committee approved the draft by nine votes to three, with one abstention, parliament’s services reported on Tuesday. The result of the exploratory talks constitutes “a good basis for conducting negotiations and reaching a satisfactory outcome that not only takes Swiss interests into account, but also contributes to long-term legal certainty”, according to the committee. In addition to the global approach based on a ...