EU en Zwitserland eens over vrij verkeer van personen (en)

The EU-Switzerland Joint Committee on Free Movement of Persons Agreement met in Brussels on 27 June. The agreement is a landmark in the relations between the EU and its Member States and Switzerland, with beneficial economic impact for Switzerland and the EU as well

The Committee discussed among other things the reintroduction by Switzerland of quotas for the nationals of eight Member States and the restrictions to the movement of service providers. Regarding the reintroduction of quotas, the EU underlined the lack of legal basis in the Agreement and in its Protocol of 2004 for such differentiation between Member States, and that the conditions for application of the so called safeguard clause were not fulfilled. It requested the repeal of the measure. Due to disagreement between both delegations, the Joint Committee could not pronounce itself on this issue

Regarding the restrictions to the movement of service providers (the so-called "flanking measures"), the EU requested the revision of the discriminatory and disproportionate aspects of some of those measures, such in the case of the so-called "eight-day-rule" and the compulsory deposit. The persistent disagreements on this and other issues show the limits of the Joint Committee as mechanism for the settlement of disputes