Switzerland shrugs off EU deadline on bilateral pact

GENEVA: Switzerland on Friday shrugged off a deadline set by the European Union (UN) to agree on future ties, despite Brussels taking a hard line on economic links unless Bern agrees to key demands.

The EU wanted Switzerland to approve a broad deal that would simplify relations, currently deined by a messy set of some 120 bilateral accords and said it expected an answer Friday to the inal terms on the table.

“Signiicant progress has been made” on reaching a deal, Swiss President Alain Berset told reporters.

But, he added that “there are still differences on very important issues” and the Alpine nation’s government needed time for broader consultations.

Swiss foreign minister Ignazio Cassis said those consultations may be done in the spring.

The draft agreement on the table covers an array of issues, including the thorny question of free movement of people.

Seeking leverage over Bern, the EU has threatened to not renew the so-called “equivalence” status of the Swiss stock exchange unless the broader deal was agreed.

Equivalence allows Eu-based trading platforms to buy and sell Swiss stocks. If Brussels takes that away, the Swiss exchange faces a huge hit from trade volume losses.

Earlier on Friday, the European Commission rejected the notion that further talks on the deal were possible

“The negotiations are over,” spokeswoman Mina Andreeva told AFP. “The ball is in the Swiss court.”

For Switzerland - and its steadily robust economy - the consequences of dismissing the EU deadline are not yet clear. Switzerland last week activated a plan to protect its stock exchange should the EU revoke equivalence guidelines.

Eu-based platforms that want to trade Swiss stocks like Nestle are now being forced to apply for registration with Swiss authorities.

The idea is to block platforms from trading Swiss stocks within the EU and thereby force trafic back to the Swiss exchange.

The Bern-brussels relationship suffered a heavy blow in 2014 when Swiss voters backed a proposal calling for the re-introduction of migrant quotas, which could have limited the number of EU citizens working in Switzerland.

The Swiss parliament in 2016 approved a modiied version of that plan in an attempt to mend fences.