EU Referendum


EU politics: the shutters come down


01/06/2013



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After Hague's outbreak of silliness, followed by Danny Alexander's dribbling about leaving the EU being "catastrophic at every level", it is interesting to see from the BBC one of the real consequences of not being part of the EU.

This is the coming into force, as of today, of new quotas on workers from EU member states permitted to take up residence in Switzerland. This, we flagged up in April and the move was confirmed in the Swiss press in the middle of last month.

Although the British print media has been reluctant to highlight this particular benefit of not being a member of the EU, it has been noted by The New York Times, which also looks at how EU member states are sharing their concerns about immigration.

This we also saw yesterday, with member states fighting to claw back powers over their own borders, diluting the Schengen Agreement which was gradually moving towards a border-free Europe. Coincidentally, this tied in with a developing scandal highlighted by Die Zeit, where the Italian government is apparently bribing Libyan refugees to go to Germany.

However, Switzerland – which is also part of the Schengen Agreement – has not yet finished with the immigration question. On 9 June, there is to be a referendum supported by the Swiss People's Party on the Asylum seekers. Amongst other things, it seeks to restrict asylum for close family members of refugees, limiting it to spouses. It also wants to remove benefits from immigrants who have been prosecuted or convicted of criminal offences.

Separately, there is to be a referendum on a popular initiative against mass immigration which will seek to impose ongoing quotas on immigration, and to remove rights to permanent residence, family reunification and comprehensive benefits for foreigners.

The effects of the current quota cap are already expected to be significant, showing up in the properly market, where a bank report suggests it could cut the rise in Zurich apartment prices to 3.5 percent this year and 3 percent in 2014.

Yet, despite this, and confounding all the tranzi arguments about the economy-boosting effects of immigration, the Swiss economy grew 0.6 percent in the first three months of the year, beating expectations and confirming Switzerland's spot among the soundest economies in struggling Europe.

So it is that one of the healthiest economies in Europe has two things that all the others do not – control over immigration, and direct democracy, the latter begetting the former. And in this, do we suppose there is a lesson?

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