Invitation: Will Switzerland become a semi-colony of the EU?

Tuesday, 4 March 2025, 12:00 – 13:30 / in person & online

We are pleased to invite you to a presentation by Prof. Carl Baudenbacher, who will give speech on, « Will Switzerland become a semi-colony of the EU?« .

On 20 December 2024, the Federal Council, Switzerland’s directorial government, approved a treaty package with the EU without having seen the text. However, the key content is notorious: Switzerland will accept the institutionalisation of five existing sectoral treaties and conclude two new institutionalised treaties with the EU. This means that Switzerland will dynamically adopt the relevant EU law. The authority to monitor Switzerland will de facto lie with the European Commission, which could unilaterally initiate dispute settlement proceedings in the event of a conflict. Although an arbitration tribunal with equal representation would formally be authorised to decide, it would have to request a binding interpretative ruling from the CJEU if EU law or treaty law with the same content as EU law were involved. This is the mechanism of the EU’s association agreements with the post-Soviet republics of Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Of course, the Federal Council claims that the arbitration tribunal could (‘pourra’) ask the ECJ for an opinion (‘avis’). This would mean that there would be no legal obligation to invoke the CJEU and comply with its ruling. However, it is questionable whether this would be compatible with the case law on the autonomy of EU law. In terms of substance, the Swiss debate centres on wage protection when working across the border, immigration from the EU (in particular the design of a ‘safeguard clause’) and who should be responsible for monitoring state aid granted by Swiss authorities. The Federal Council claims to have negotiated exceptions from the institutionalisation of the agreements in question.

Carl Baudenbacher studied law at the Faculty of Law and Economics at the University of Bern, where he also obtained his doctorate in 1978. He was habilitated at the University of Zurich in 1983. Baudenbacher was an ad hoc judge of the Liechtenstein Supreme Court from 1994 to 1995, a judge of the EFTA Court from 1995 to April 2018 and its President from 2003 to 2017. The EFTA Court hears cases concerning the EEA/EFTA states of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Between 1987 and 2013, Carl Baudenbacher held the Chair of Private, Commercial and Business Law at the University of St. Gallen HSG. From 1993 to 2005, he was a Permanent Visiting Professor of European and International Law at the University of Texas at Austin.

Venue:
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg Centre for European Law
4, rue Alphonse Weicker
L-2721 Luxembourg
Room: A401 (4^th floor) Language: english