Europe

Just a few weeks after the institutional agreement negotiations with the EU were terminated, the Federal Council started working towards the unblocking of the second Swiss contribution to selected EU member states. These framework credits are intended to contribute to greater cohesion within the EU and to improved migration management in Europe. Ruth Huber, head of the SDC's Cooperation with Eastern Europe Department, answers our questions on this topic.

Ambassador Patric Franzen wants to involve the embassies in the EU area even more in his work as head of the Europe Division in the FDFA.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania: the three European countries are celebrating 100 years of bilateral relations with Switzerland and 30 years of renewed ties after the end of the Soviet era. We asked the people working daily to build these relations what this centenary means to them.

On 26 May 2021 the Federal Council decided to stop negotiations on the institutional agreement with the EU. At a press conference following the Federal Council meeting, President of the Swiss Confederation Guy Parmelin and Federal Councillors Ignazio Cassis and Karin Keller-Sutter explained the reasons for this decision. Mr Cassis affirmed that Switzerland remains a reliable and committed partner to the EU even without the institutional agreement.

At its meeting on 26 May, the Federal Council undertook an overall evaluation of the outcome of the negotiations on the institutional framework agreement (InstA). It concluded that there remain substantial differences between Switzerland and the EU on key aspects of the agreement. The conditions are thus not met for the signing of the agreement. The Federal Council today took the decision not to sign the agreement, and communicated this decision to the EU. This brings the negotiations on the draft of the InstA to a close. The Federal Council nevertheless considers it to be in the shared interest of Switzerland and the EU to safeguard their well-established cooperation and to systematically maintain the agreements already in force. It therefore wishes to launch a political dialogue with the EU on continued cooperation. Meanwhile, it has tasked the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) to consider how autonomous amendments to Swiss legislation might contribute to the stabilisation of Swiss–EU relations.

On 21 May 2021, 47 foreign ministers met online for the 131st Session of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers. They work as a team, also in the digital sphere. It is precisely the digital sphere that presents the Council of Europe with both a challenge and an opportunity to safeguard human rights, democracy and the rule of law not only in the physical world but also in cyberspace. Four Swiss experts working in the Council of Europe share their experiences.