Deadline looms for agreement on Swiss-EU ties

Swiss ties with the European Union, its biggest trading partner, face a critical...

FILE PHOTO: An EU flag flies beside Switzerland's national flag near the German-Swiss border in Rheinfelden, Germany, March 11, 2019. REUTERS/Arnd WIegmann/File Photo

After more than four years of negotiations produced a draft text in November, the Swiss government this month tentatively endorsed the accord but said it needed clarifications on three areas — protecting Swiss wages, regulating state aid, and spelling out citizens’ rights — before it could sign off. The Commission’s main leverage is its recognition of Swiss stock exchanges as equivalent to EU bourses, which allows them to access the bloc’s single market and which is due to expire at the end of June.

But tackling Swiss measures to protect Europe’s highest wages from EU workers crossing the border on cheaper temporary assignments — a main bone of contention for a decade — looks like a harder nut to crack.The head of the Swiss SGB labor union federation, Pierre-Yves Maillard, stuck to a hard line, telling the SonntagsZeitung paper it would be impossible to find a solution by autumn.

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