Swiss vote to easestrictures on foreign workers
GENEVA: Switzerland on Sunday voted in favor of easing restrictions on East European workers, helping to temper the country's image as a fortress at the center of Europe.
In a referendum, 56 percent of voters backed government plans to open the labor market in stages to the 10 mainly East European nations that joined the European Union in May 2004.
Switzerland signed an agreement with Brussels in 1999, when the Union had 15 members, making it easier for EU and Swiss citizens to work in each other's countries. The pact took effect last year, but was not automatically extended to include the EU's new members. Parliament agreed to the extension, but political opposition was able to force a referendum.
The vote Sunday was the first in which West European citizens have approved measures to open the door to workers from Eastern Europe through a referendum.The yes vote in Switzerland, which is not an EU member, comes amid growing discontent among nations like Germany and France about immigration from Eastern Europe.
"Switzerland has expressed its approval of the enlargement of the EU through this popular vote," said Micheline Calmy-Rey, Switzerland's foreign minister.
José
Today in Europe
Switzerland is not a member of the European Union.
Swiss voters have repeatedly rejected moves to join the EU over the past decade. Instead, the country has signed bilateral agreements with Brussels on issues like freedom of movement for workers, commerce and taxation.
Behind the isolationist image, however, Switzerland has become one of the more open economies on the Continent, analysts say.
Switzerland sells about two-thirds of its exports to EU countries and buys about 80 percent of its imports from the 25-member bloc.
About a fifth of Switzerland's seven million people are foreigners, one of the largest proportions in Europe. By comparison, foreign workers in Germany account for about 8 percent of its total population.
As a small country, Switzerland has had to rely on guest workers to a greater degree than other European countries, said René Schwok, a professor at Geneva University's European Institute.
"Swiss voters know the prosperity of Switzerland is linked to immigration," Schwok said. Voters also probably understood that a no vote would have led to the unraveling of not only the agreements on freedom of movement, but also other previous accords with the EU, Schwok said. Before the referendum Brussels made it clear it would not let Switzerland treat workers from Western Europe better than those from the new member states.
"The European Union looks forward to continuing its close relationship with its neighbor Switzerland," the government of the United Kingdom, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said in a statement. Still, Switzerland, like its EU neighbors, has also seen a rising wave of opposition recently to foreign workers amid sluggish economic growth and higher unemployment.
As in France and the Netherlands, where voters rejected a new EU constitution, the Swiss voiced concern during campaigning for the referendum Sunday that increased competition with East European workers would lead to job losses. Only Ireland, Sweden and Britain have fully opened their labor markets to the EU's new members since they joined last year. In a recent poll, the EU found that only half of its citizens favor further expansion to include nations like Bulgaria and Romania. Only a third of voters in France, Germany and Austria back continued enlargement, the EU says.
Like many other EU countries, Switzerland has chosen to keep quota restrictions on East European workers until 2011, when they will be phased out.
EconomieSuisse, a federation of Swiss businesses, welcomed the vote, calling it a positive step for a country that does so much business outside its borders.
