Brussels sees progress in relations with Bern

European Union officials expressed relief on Thursday that Swiss lawmakers appear to have found a way to limit immigration without violating an accord on the free movement of people. The European Commission said a Swiss law adopted last week “should make it possible to preserve the integrity of the contractual commitments between the European Union and Switzerland”. The commission’s statement came after a meeting in Brussels between representatives of EU countries, the European Commission and Mario Gattiker, who heads Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration. Nevertheless, the commission said that more “clarifications and guarantees on key points” are needed to ensure the Swiss crackdown on immigration does not compromise agreements over the free movement of people, which allows the Swiss to access the EU’s single market of 500 million. “Questions about access to information about job vacancies and full respect for the rights of frontier workers are ...