Labor migration to Switzerland will be limited only by the "principle of internal preference"
As reported by the portal Swissinfo.ch, the Council of States approved a format for regulating labor immigration to Switzerland that does not call into question Bern's relations with the EU: no restrictions on labor immigration contradicting European-Swiss documents, instead a consistent implementation of the principle of internal preference. In this, the senators were even much tougher than the deputies of the large chamber of parliament – the National Council.
The referendum of February 9, 2014, in which the people of Switzerland unexpectedly voted for a return to regulating labor immigration from EU countries to Switzerland using quotas and contingents, has been a real headache for the country's politicians for almost three years now. Initiated by the conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP), the corresponding bill obviously contradicted the principle of free movement, residence, and job search. This principle, recall, was enshrined in the first package of bilateral agreements concluded between the EU and Switzerland in the early 2000s.
Refusing to implement the decision made by the people in February 2014 would give leading politicians of the Swiss People's Party (SVP) the right to assert that the government and parliament do not take into account the will of the "sovereign," i.e., the people. So, what to choose – a break with the EU or a violation of the formal provisions of direct democracy, which proceeds from the fact that generally the people's decision must be understood (and implemented) literally? The wise Council of States decided to take both aspects into account and agreed to an even tougher version of implementing the principle of internal preference in hiring, but without introducing any quotas, contingents, or other instruments for regulating labor immigration from the EU to Switzerland.
Specifically, this will mean the following: before starting to look for a worker abroad, the employer must invite for an interview at least several unemployed persons already in Switzerland, then justify why none of them could be selected for the job in question. The debate on how and within what framework this should happen lasted five hours; Swiss television, which happens quite rarely, broadcast live from the Swiss Senate chamber; as a result, the decision was adopted with 26 votes in favor (16 deputies voted against).
The decisive argument was that the Council of States' decision should not violate the aforementioned principle of free movement, residence, and job search in force between the EU and Switzerland. Thus, the majority of the Council heeded the words of Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga, who warned the day before that "the introduction of quotas and contingents on the inflow of labor from EU countries would mean a breach of one of the treaties of the first package of sectoral Swiss-European agreements, which would lead to the denunciation of this package. And this would be a catastrophe for the Confederation's economy."
The author of the ultimately approved model was former chairman of the Swiss center-right Liberal Party (FDP) Philipp Müller. This model provides, in particular, for a procedure whereby enterprises and firms will now be required to register all their job vacancies with cantonal labor and employment offices, invite primarily officially unemployed persons for interviews, and very thoroughly justify why these individuals could not get the job and why the employer has no choice but to start looking for suitable candidates abroad. This model should be applied especially in regions where the unemployment situation by Swiss standards is particularly tense (in particular, in the western French-speaking cantons and in the canton of Ticino).
The National Council, the large chamber of parliament, had previously spoken in favor of an even softer option: firms would be required to register job vacancies with cantonal labor and employment offices (Regionale Arbeitsvermittlungszentren – RAV) only if average labor immigration to Switzerland exceeded a certain critical threshold. Now, after the Council of States has adopted its decision, it is the National Council's turn again.
Recall that the Swiss chambers of parliament are equal, so they cannot be called "upper" and "lower," and the final decision is usually the product of complete non-opposition and agreement between both. The parliamentarians of the National Council must approve (or not) the vote of their fellow senators within the current parliamentary session, if they want to meet certain statutory deadlines for implementing the results of the referendum vote (in this case, the deadline would be February 9, 2017).
Incidentally, it is on this day that a referendum will be held in Switzerland on the so-called popular legislative initiative "RASA" ("Raus aus der Sackgasse"/"Out of the dead end!"), which simply demands the annulment of the decisions of the referendum of February 9, 2014, and the removal from the text of the Swiss Federal Constitution of Article 121a, modified as a result of that vote.
Kati ROMI.
Translation by Igor Petrov.