MOSCOW (Sputnik) — A slight majority of Swiss nationals voted last year to curb immigration to the country, which is part of EU’s borderless Schengen area, but not an EU member state.
"The case is clear: we have been given a constitutional mandate, and we must and can reduce immigration influx," Niklaus Schneider-Ammann told Neue Zuercher Zeitung. "Now we are negotiating with Brussels. Both sides are not interested in cancelling the free movement deal."
#Switzerland pushing to set quotas for migrants coming from the #EU. Quota system works both ways apparently!
— Gjorgji Kostojchin (@GjorgjiK) 4 декабря 2015
The Swiss government pledged in a statement earlier this month that it would continue efforts to push through a "safeguard clause" to set immigration from the 28-nation bloc at a certain threshold.
"It is no bluff," the new president, who is due to take office in January 2016, told the Swiss outlet. "We have had a long debate in the Bundesrat [Federal Council] on this decision," he added.
Schneider-Ammann admitted that the cap on immigration had not been agreed. "We need qualified foreign workers, but how many that is, we’ll discuss it next year."
In 1999, Brussels and Bern struck a deal on the freedom of movement. Over 1 million EU citizens live in Switzerland, and another 230,000 commute to the country every day to go to work, according to the EU External Action Service.
