EU roars, but Switzerland not moved

Yesterday we looked at the fresh foreign policy position paper of one of the important Swiss political parties, FDP. Die Liberalen, which confirmed our picture that Switzerland is deeply dug in with its bilateral European policy credo: European Union: The Swiss entrenched (FDP. The Liberals) (2 January 2011).


Media reception of EU conclusions

Here are a few media reports which reflect the reception of the conclusions of the Council of the European Union.

Leigh Phillips on Euobserver.com highlighted the controversial issues in the conclusions of the EU's General Affairs Council: EU to Switzerland: 'Where are we going with this relationship?' (15 December 2010).

Almost in real time, the online community newspaper Genevalunch.com presented both selected criticism from the EU Council and the same day defence from the Swiss Integration Office: Swiss, EU, agree to disagree – for now – over taxes, bilateral approach (14 December 2010).

On the day of the EU GAC conclusions, Swissinfo.ch noted the increasingly strident language from the European Union, but Swiss experts were far from shocked: EU reprimand will have little impact on Bern (14 December 2010).

In a nutshell:

In Switzerland, experts are predicting there will be little fallout from the findings of the Council of the EU.

The article is worth reading for its discussion of individual issues as well.

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The EU giant has roared, but Swiss experts expect nothing much to happen. A sobering thought for the member states who have created the European Union.



Ralf Grahn



P.S. The Green MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht has posted in English a blog post written by the Hungarian journalist Judit Bayer: What's the Problem with the Hungarian Media Law? You could ask @MartensEPP, @epptweet and @EPPGroup on Twitter to dedicate 2011 to the founding values of and the fundamental rights in the European Union, starting at the top: #EuTrioHu



Read Kopfzeiler ”Ungarn: Offener Brief an Botschaft und EU – Zu Ungarns Medienzensurgesetz” (part German, part English), and then do you bit for media freedom in Europe.