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Comment by greenavocado | Hacker News Reader

Imagine how crazy it is to call a population cap an act of "suicide."

It's not the population cap, but that bilateral agreements with the EU depend on the free movement of people. Without it, Switzerland could lose access to the EU market, which accounts for 51% of their exports. Switzerland cannot just choose whatever they like from the agreements and cancel what they don't. They will have to accept whatever in order to keep in the EU common market, or the country will suffer massive troubles. Switzerland needs the EU much more than the other way around.

Imagine how crazy it is to think "Switzerland out of Schengen" isn't.

It's a small, landlocked country, surrounded on all sides by Schengen nations, that until recently delegated air defense to the EU outside of their air force's office hours. https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/19/swis...

Plenty of us remember when Switzerland was not in the Schengen though. This might be good for Americans, who haven't been able to get working visas in Switzerland since EU countries now have priority. But otherwise, I don't see much changing beyond border procedures.

As with Brexit, leaving is likely to result in a much stricter regime than the status quo from before the establishment of the system.

True, maybe. It is really hard to say. I'm not pro leaving in any sense (beyond being an American who used to work in Switzerland and wouldn't have that chance today because of the Schengen).

Most of the downsides would be on the goods side. Swiss companies would loose market access and the chance of "better" trade agreements is even worse then the UK, especially currently.

I already pass through Swiss customs when driving in, so it makes virtually no difference to me besides slowing things down at the border potentially.

Schengen covers border controls (i.e. immigration/visits), not customs ones (the stuff you bring with).

When you drive through there is someone standing looking at the line of cars and if they don't like the way you look they point to the side and you have to explain yourself and your cargo. It's like an arbitrary border control right now.

Most of the time I'm waved through.

To be fair there is the same thing between Austria and Germany for example. Except it's more strict there even.

Yes, I'm aware of the current state of things.

This is a proposal to change that state to something far stricter in this regard.

When the neighboring countries become a threat again, they will place high explosives back inside the bridges and mountain passes.

Not sure if they actually removed it in all the places, except that one bridge by Basel everyone know about.

Well they also blow up 70% of their exports? :P

At the very least it’s an infringement of human rights.

Yes, because in the human rights bill it says that everyone in the world has the right to go live in Switzerland.

Is being able to move to Switzerland really an universal human right?

Tell that to the EU.

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