The Swiss have had a reputation for doughty independence since the days of
William Tell. He was made to shoot an apple off his son’s head with his
crossbow; in revenge, he killed the tyrannical overlord and ignited a
successful revolt against the Habsburgs.
This week the bolt struck at the European Union, when the Swiss voted for restrictions on Europe’s much-cherished free movement of people. To surging anti-EU and anti-immigrant parties, the referendum on February 9th was a victory for Switzerland’s “braggart spirit of freedom”, as Friedrich Schiller called it in his play about Tell. The Swiss government and business elite have been transfixed by a decision both opposed. The European establishment is scrambling to respond.
Switzerland is a member neither of the EU nor of the looser European Economic Area (EEA) that includes Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Nevertheless a web of more than 100 bilateral treaties binds the Swiss tightly into the “four freedoms” of movement underpinning the EU’s single market: of goods, services, people and capital. The repudiation of any one of these puts in question Switzerland’s ability to benefit from the others. And the vote has an impact well beyond the Alps.
read more: Charlemagne: Switzerland’s crossbow | The Economist
This week the bolt struck at the European Union, when the Swiss voted for restrictions on Europe’s much-cherished free movement of people. To surging anti-EU and anti-immigrant parties, the referendum on February 9th was a victory for Switzerland’s “braggart spirit of freedom”, as Friedrich Schiller called it in his play about Tell. The Swiss government and business elite have been transfixed by a decision both opposed. The European establishment is scrambling to respond.
Switzerland is a member neither of the EU nor of the looser European Economic Area (EEA) that includes Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Nevertheless a web of more than 100 bilateral treaties binds the Swiss tightly into the “four freedoms” of movement underpinning the EU’s single market: of goods, services, people and capital. The repudiation of any one of these puts in question Switzerland’s ability to benefit from the others. And the vote has an impact well beyond the Alps.
read more: Charlemagne: Switzerland’s crossbow | The Economist
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