Swiss to vote on EU worker rights

[Skandi]

Swiss voters are voting in a referendum to decide whether to continue allowing in workers from the European Union.

More controversially for many Swiss, they will also vote on whether to extend that free movement to new EU members Bulgaria and Romania.

at least they get a vote

Brussels has made it clear the Swiss can't pick and choose EU policies - rejecting free movement could threaten those crucial trade ties.

Bully boy tactics again I see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7877218.stm

[Maelstrom]

The pressure that the EU are putting on the Swiss is near on a violation of sovereignty!

I hope the Swiss stick to their guns and stand up against EU tyranny up

[Atlas]

Swiss have been neutral for centurys in Europe's trouble, whether it was war or referundum. At least Brussels can't tell them how to make their own politics.

[Revenant]

They voted yes.

Switzerland gave open-door economic ties with the European Union a vote of confidence by strongly supporting the free movement of labor in a referendum Sunday.

Official results showed 59.6 percent of those voting in the referendum supported continuing the free-movement accords with 25 EU countries and extending them to the two newest EU members, Romania and Bulgaria, a much bigger margin of support than suggested by opinion polls before the vote.

"It's quite a surprise, the big yes vote," said Lukas Goldber, an analyst with gfs.bern, a political and social research institute that conducted two surveys of opinion before the referendum. Voters not only supported the free-movement accords, "it was a broad yes to economic collaboration with Europe," he said.

The government and three of Switzerland's four main political parties, together with business and employers' associations, strongly supported extending the free-movement agreements.

All of them warned that a no vote would damage trade and investment ties with the EU, the biggest market for Swiss goods and a crucial source of skilled labor.

Free movement of labor between Switzerland and the Union was part of a package of seven accords also covering trade and movement of goods. Under a guillotine clause, a vote against free movement of labor would have resulted automatically in termination of all the other accords.

But Switzerland's biggest political party, the right-wing Swiss People's Party, or SVP, had opposed extending access to Romania and Bulgaria on the grounds that their lower level of economic development compared with the rest of the EU would result in an influx of job-seekers and threaten employment for the Swiss.

An SVP poster campaign depicting black crows pecking at a map of Switzerland appeared to have caught the unease of Swiss workers, which has been heightened by the global economic crisis that economists say is pushing up unemployment in Switzerland.

The second gfs.bern opinion survey, conducted 10 days before the referendum, suggested only 50 percent of voters supported the extension and that opinion was swinging against the extension. In the end, only four of Switzerland's 26 cantons voted against the extension.

Analysts attributed the outcome in part to the intensive and costly efforts to mobilize supporters conducted by organizations in favor of the extension. These included personalized e-mail messaging inspired by President Barack Obama's election campaign and read by more than 300,000 people, said Godber, the gfs.bern analyst.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/...s.4-425448.php

[SwordoftheVistula]

Analysts attributed the outcome in part to the intensive and costly efforts to mobilize supporters conducted by organizations in favor of the extension. These included personalized e-mail messaging inspired by President Barack Obama's election campaign and read by more than 300,000 people, said Golder, the gfs.bern analyst.

Wonder if this was funded by George Soros as well?