[ad_1]
Swiss President Ignazio Cassis wants to improve relations with the European Union and called for a new package of bilateral agreements. He said he believes his country should move closer to the European bloc.
Years of talks aimed at bringing Switzerland closer to the EU common market failed in May last year, when the Swiss government abandoned a 2018 draft treaty aimed at strengthening ties with key trade partner .
Brussels for a decade has been trying to push this treaty forward so that Switzerland can adopt the rules of the bloc’s common market. It was also believed that this treaty could provide an effective solution to a number of disputes.
Cassis, who also holds the post of foreign minister, said the Swiss government is now working on new talks with the EU.
“At the Federal Council we are currently in the process of defining the framework for a possible package or a negotiating agenda,” he told the SonntagsZeitung on Sunday.
Cassis mentioned energy and electricity as topics for possible agreements and added that there are “many opportunities for cooperation in the field of health, research, media, culture, through which we can deepen relations.”
Economic ties between the EU and Switzerland are now overseen by over 100 bilateral agreements dating back to 1972.
Those agreements are still in force, but they could be broken over time and could jeopardize Switzerland’s membership of the European common market.
Cassis said that in a tripartite world of the United States, Russia / China and the EU, “pressure on Switzerland to cultivate deeper relations with Europe will increase. “Because the EU is closer to us economically and ideologically.”
top channel
[ad_2]
Source link
