Cabinet to limit immigration with safeguard clause

The Swiss cabinet has announced it wants to limit immigration from the European Union with a safeguard clause as part of its efforts to implement an initiative approved by voters in February 2014. In the event that it is unable to reach agreement with the EU, the cabinet has instructed the justice ministry to draft a dispatch on a unilateral safeguard clause which will take effect if immigration reaches a certain threshold. This dispatch should be ready by the beginning of March 2016. In a statement on Friday, the cabinet said it had decided to continue the ongoing consultations with the EU, with the aim of achieving a “mutually acceptable solution which respects the constitution while complying with the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons”. “This would safeguard the bilateral path and re-establish the legal certainty that is so important to Switzerland's economy,” it said, pointing out that two academic studies commissioned by the State Secretariat for ...