Swiss negotiator sees progress in exploratory talks with EU

Livia Leu said unanswered questions remain, for example regarding the free movement of people © Keystone / Pierre Albouy

The exploratory talks between Switzerland and the European Union are “moving forwards” but they have not yet reached the point where they can be used for actual negotiations, State Secretary Livia Leu said on Thursday after a ninth round of talks in Brussels.

Leu, Switzerland’s top negotiator with the EU, met Juraj Nociar, head of the cabinet of European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic, and Stefano Sannino, secretary-general of the European External Action Service. Sefcovic is the Commissioner in charge of Swiss-EU relations.

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The talks took place after the Swiss government last month called for a mandate for negotiations with the EU by the end of June.

This meeting was an expression of this dynamic, Leu said. The key parameters would formulate the goals to be achieved and the most important substantive elements that a future mandate should contain. Domestic and foreign policy aspects would also be taken into account. Leu added that she had now explained this to her EU negotiating partners.

However, she said that even after the ninth round of exploratory talks there were still unanswered questions, for example regarding the free movement of people. Wage protection and the question of immigration were still at stake, she said.

The next round of talks will therefore take place on May 30. In the meantime the talks will continue at the technical level. The government would then take another position at the end of June, Leu said.

Swiss concerns

For its part, the EU Commission wrote after the meeting with Leu that the goal should be to “conclude the exploratory talks as quickly as possible and to conclude the subsequent negotiations by summer 2024”.

Switzerland was also interested in making rapid progress with this EU Commission, Leu said. However, this would also depend on Brussels’ flexibility to address Swiss concerns.

In 2021 non-EU Switzerland unilaterally walked away from negotiations on a framework deal to replace the more than 120 bilateral accords which have regulated relations for the past decades. That led to a souring of relations between Bern and Brussels. Efforts to break the diplomatic deadlock have come to nothing.