says the Swiss bank of Switzerland, the country that has closed its boarders. Last week's immigration referendum has certainly closed any hopes of Switzerland benefiting from a diversified, thriving tech industry. Europeans will go to London, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, etc before going to Switzerland.
Even the politicians in favor of the proposal immediately started asking for big quotas for their regions, so as not to hurt the economy - the irony...
So I'm not quite sure what will happen and the EU seems quite pissed about it (and rightly so), but looking at the tiny majority (50.3%) and the numerous lies during the campaign ("no, the EU won't do anything about it if it gets accepted"), I'm pretty confident this will either result in a law with no effect or we'll have to vote again to choose if we want to continue working with the EU or not.
i also see the irony from within. additionally, switzerland, of all the european countries, is the one which has one of the lowest levels of immigration (both legal and illegal). i think an inexistent paranoia took over many of the no so educated voters.
personally, i think the EU's stand needs to be tough, just make that 50.3% realise that what a mistake they've done. legislation won't go through until the summer, so lets hope much of the absurdity is not passed.
Actually, it has one of the highest levels of immigration in Europe, after Monaco, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-bo...
"Switzerland and Australia, with about a quarter of their population born outside the country, are the two countries with the highest proportion of immigrants in the world"
There are some more numbers here: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/themen/01/07/bla... 23% of Switzerland's population are not Swiss citizens, and Germany+Italy+Portugal+France account for about half of that.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_9618000/...
This will most certainly not happen. Instead, it will backfire. If the EU refuses a pragmatic and goal-oriented debate out of principle, it will only damage its reputation further and strengthen the anti-EU sentiment.
They voted, they had right to vote how they voted, just don't be surprised if that decision has some other consequences they won't like.
Switzerland is NOT part of the European Union Customs Union. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Customs_Union for further information.
Etc.
And there is not the whole package up for renegotiation, only 7 of 100+ bilateral agreements between the EU and Switzerland.
So, if Swiss want to change the part about immigration, it is obvious UE will have to change also the other parts (if not just trashing the whole treat)
From a spaniard.
The Swiss people have voted against unregulated mass immigration from the European Union in a democratic referendum. That was basically the system until 2007 and is the default system for immigration outside the European Union. The US for example has not even unregulated mass immigration for Canadians …
I bet that soon enough we will vote again about measures to fix this vote.
Since the referendum was accepted (though with a really thin majority of 50.3 %) it will force Switzerland to renegotiate the treaty with the EU, which in fact already suspended further negotiations with Switzerland by itself.
Immigration of qualified workers will still be possible and encouraged by Switzerland, though. I think the main motivation behind the referendum was the fear of "Überfremdung" (foreign infiltration), which is probably not entirely irrational with currently 25 % of people living in Switzerland being of foreign origin. So I think one should not overreact here.
[1] https://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/bfm/en/home/themen/fza_schw...
[2] http://www.bsv.admin.ch/soziale_sicherheit/index.html?lang=e...