Immigration and Swiss-EU free movement of persons: Question of a safeguard clause

Abstract

The issue of migration is a current topic in different European countries. In this paper, we concentrate on the case of Switzerland. After the adoption of the Mass Immigration Initiative on 9 February 2014, Switzerland is faced with a challenging task. It needs to implement the constitutional mandate to manage migration autonomously, although Switzerland has a bilateral free movement of persons agreement with the EU. We present an approach to a solution for discussion. The basic idea is to maintain the principle of freedom of movement without fixed quotas or national priority but with a safeguard clause for (statistically) exceptional situations. An exceptional situation occurs if serious social, economic or political difficulties arise. As an objective method to determine serious difficulties, we choose an excessive percentage in net migration, defined on the basis of the situation in the EU/EFTA. If the net migration in Switzerland is getting excessive, the safeguard clause could be called. In addition, we take other factors into account such as the amount of the EU/EFTA foreigners and the labor market.