If approved, measure would affect Italian workers at the border
The Swiss decided in a referendum this Sunday to maintain the free movement of people within the European Union, rejecting by more than 60% of the votes the Conservatives' proposal to end the agreement signed by Bern and Brussels in 2021 in 1999.
With two of the country's 26 cantons yet to complete voting, 61,69% of voters rejected the proposal from the Center Democratic Union (UDC), against which the other main parties, including the Socialists, Liberals, Christian Democrats and Greens, had taken a position.
Voter turnout was particularly high at around 60%, double the usual figure for Swiss quarterly referendums, an indicator of the importance voters attach to maintaining the relationship with their main trading partner.
The UDC, the party with the most votes in the 2019 parliamentary elections but which holds just a quarter of the seats in the legislature, proposed ending the agreement on the grounds that it disadvantaged older national workers in favor of young immigrants from the European Union.
The other groups asked for a “no” and warned that the 1999 agreement was linked to others with the EU in areas such as agriculture, trade, science, transport and civil aviation. It could, therefore, compromise the relationship with a market to which Switzerland directs half of its exports.
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