Blogartikel in Englisch von Annina Grob, Bereichsleiterin Politik SAJV, veröffentlicht am 16. September 2016 auf www.universityworldnews.com

 

Two and a half years ago now, a narrow majority of the Swiss electorate approved the so-called popular ‘Stop Mass Immigration’ initiative or MEI proposed by the Swiss People’s Party or SVP. The initiative demanded that Switzerland control immigration autonomously and set quotas and upper limits for foreigners. The consequences of this decision remain difficult to estimate.

What is clear, however, is that since 9 February 2014 negotiations between the EU and Switzerland around full association status on the Erasmus+ youth exchange programme have come to a halt. The same threat hangs over the Horizon 2020 research programme – Switzerland’s participation in the world’s largest funding programme for fundamental and applied research runs out at the end of this year.

The reason is that, by adopting the requirements of the MEI initiative, it has become impossible for the Federal Council to sign the protocol on extending free movement of persons (Bilateral 1) to Croatia in the spring of 2014. And yet signing the Croatia protocol is itself a condition of Switzerland’s full association status on the Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020 European programmes.

 

Minimal transitional solution

After the suspension of negotiations on Switzerland’s full association status on the Erasmus+ programme, so-called transitional solutions were put in place for 2014, then up to the end of 2016 and recently to the end of 2017. These allow Switzerland to take part in Erasmus+ to a limited extent.

In the transitional solutions, priority was given to Key Action 1 (mobility of individuals) – overshadowing Key Action 2 (long-term cooperation for supporting innovation and the exchange of good practice) and Key Action 3 (support for policy reform) – in addition to the complicated and limited criteria for project submissions.

Thus, for partnership projects (cooperation projects), there is less leeway as Swiss organisations now have to demonstrate their ‘added value’ in order to participate in a project. Furthermore, cooperation projects cannot be led by Swiss people.

The figures from 2014 prove that a decline in Erasmus+ applications took place after the yes vote on MEI and that there was a great deal of uncertainty among applicants as to whether projects could be continued.

The consequences of the Erasmus+ transitional solution for universities and other higher education institutions are also administrative in nature: every university has to arrange each individual contract directly with the partner universities. For students, access to universities is more limited and choice is more restricted.

If you listen to the official government representatives, full association status in Erasmus+ remains the aim. But as long as the situation with the EU remains as muddled as it is now, no more negotiations will take place. Indeed, as long ago as the end of 2013 there was disagreement over Switzerland’s financial participation. This question still needs to be clarified.

The situation with Horizon 2020 is even more precarious. If no solution is found by the end of the year, Switzerland will be treated as a non-member country, as Neue Zürcher Zeitung has reported. Time is therefore pressing to allow researchers to have access to the European programme for 2017.

 

Civic and institutional commitment

In the wake of the yes vote on the initiative against mass immigration, various projects and initiatives have been launched.

For example, the association of Swiss student unions in conjunction with swissuniversities, which is the higher education rectors’ conference, and others published an appeal called ‘Not without Switzerland’.

The National Youth Council of Switzerland or SAJV wrote an open letter to the Swiss government and the EU, co-signed by numerous youth organisations, and founded the Youth Committee for an Open Switzerland.

A few months ago, swissuniversities also launched the AdValue project, aimed at creating awareness of political questions within universities. How effective these various projects will be remains to be seen. But the educational establishment in Switzerland has woken from its slumber – an important first step.

 

Squaring the circle

After the acceptance of a public vote, the Federal Council and parliament have three years in which to bring about the implementation of the relevant article in the constitution.

At the start of 2016 the Federal Council submitted a suggestion for the implementation of the mass immigration initiative to parliament that proposed a so-called unilateral safeguard clause within the EU if no mutual solution could be agreed with the EU.

In addition, quotas and upper limits for third-country nationals for the purpose of educational and further training lasting more than a year have been proposed.

However, this unilateral safeguard clause contradicts the free movement of persons that is a prerequisite for the signing of the Croatia protocol. Nevertheless, in spring 2016 parliament linked this same protocol to the implementation of the mass immigration initiative.

Whether a solution can be found to square this circle is an open question. But Switzerland would be well advised to put forward a proposal that is acceptable to the EU, because, after Brexit, Brussels now has other priorities.

 

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