GENEVA: Reeling Monday from a vote to cap EU immigration, Switzerland’s government and business community moved to limit the damage to trade ties with the big European bloc.
Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter played down talk of a “Black Sunday” in ties with Brussels, after 50.3 percent of voters backed a referendum proposal to end a seven-year-old pact that gave equal footing to most EU citizens in the Swiss labor market.
“We need to avoid that kind of language,” he told reporters.
“Switzerland is not going to rip up its deal with the EU on freedom of movement,” he insisted.
Yet that assertion butted up against a so-called “guillotine” clause in a package of deals with EU that said that, if one deal is voided, the others collapse too.
The other deals have to do with issues such as trade between the EU members and non-member Switzerland.
Brussels says it will now scrutinize all EU-Swiss relations as a result of the vote. The government opposed the “Stop Mass Immigration” proposal — masterminded by the rightwing populist Swiss People’s Party — but the people have the last word on a huge range of issues in the country’s direct democracy.
The party argues that with 80,000 EU citizens arriving per year — more than the 8,000 predicted before the rules were liberalized in 2007 — the nation of eight million people must apply the brakes.
It claims that EU migrants undercut Swiss workers’ salaries, and that overpopulation has driven up rents, stretched the health and education systems, and overloaded the road and rail networks.
While Switzerland has long had a sizable foreign population, over recent years the proportion has climbed from one-fifth to roughly a quarter.
The voted-in measure requires authorities to revive rules that fixed quotas per business sector for work permits that can be issued to EU citizens.
It sets a three-year deadline to renegotiate the labor market deal with Brussels. The existing accord remains in force in the meantime.
While holding out against EU membership, Switzerland has close ties with the 28-nation bloc with which it does the bulk of its trade.
Burkhalter was set to launch a Europe-wide diplomatic drive to explain the vote and seek a solution. Germany, his country’s top commercial partner, was scheduled as his first stop.
But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned that the result “is going to create plenty of problems for Switzerland in a host of areas.”
In France, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said “we will review our relations with Switzerland.”
Foreign workers have long been drawn into Switzerland’s wealthy economy, which is this year expected to grow by 2.1 percent, almost double the rate in the eurozone. Last year, it expanded by 1.9 percent while the eurozone’s contracted by 0.4 percent.
Swiss unemployment was 3.5 percent in January, compared with 12.1 percent in the eurozone.
The free labor market deal, fully in force since 2007, was part of a package signed in 1999 after five years of talks.
Most recent immigrants in Switzerland come from neighboring Italy, Germany and France, as well as Portugal.
Swiss move to limit damage after EU migrant curb vote
Swiss move to limit damage after EU migrant curb vote
UN peacekeepers defy South Sudan military’s order to leave opposition-held town
JUBA, South Sudan: The United Nations Mission in South Sudan said Monday that it would not comply with a government order to shut down its base in Akobo, an opposition stronghold near the Ethiopian border where tens of thousands of refugees have fled.
On Friday, the South Sudanese army ordered UN peacekeepers as well as NGOs and civilians to vacate the town ahead of a planned assault.
But the mission refused to leave and said it would provide “a protective presence for civilians” in the town, adding that the safety and security of its personnel “must be fully respected at all times.”
The UN Mission said it was engaging “intensively with national, state and local stakeholders” regarding this order. “Any military operations in and around Akobo gravely endanger the safety and security of civilians,” said mission chief Anita Kiki Gbeho.
The South Sudanese government has been fighting opposition forces since a 2018 peace deal broke down about a year ago.
A dramatic escalation took place in December 2025, when opposition forces seized several government outposts in northern Jonglei. A government counter-offensive repelled their forces a month later and displaced over 280,000 people. Tens of thousands have sought refuge in Akobo, where a small contingent of UN peacekeepers is stationed.
Fearing the looming government assault on Akobo, humanitarian workers were evacuated over the weekend, and a mass exodus of the population has also begun.
Local officials contacted by the The Associated Press said fleeing civilians faced danger and widespread shortages of essential supplies. Dual Diew, the Akobo County health director, who has fled to Ethiopia, said there were 84 wounded patients at the hospital. “We have most of them with us here now,” he said, adding that they lack medicine and basic nursing equipment.
Christophe Garnier, the leader of Doctors Without Borders in South Sudan said the organization had to evacuate its staff from Akobo on Saturday and learned of the subsequent looting of its hospital and the ransacking of its office.
“People in Akobo must now either flee without protection or remain at risk of being killed, while losing access to health care and other essential services,” he said.
The three Western governments that have played a major role in the peace process — the U.S, UK, and Norway — sent a letter to President Kiir on Monday urging that the army’s evacuation order be revoked and warning of “further deaths, displacement and suffering for the South Sudanese people” if the offensive on Akobo is implemented.
