Dublin & Shengen €U Treaties - How the Swiss voted & not voted.

international | eu | news report Sunday June 05, 2005 13:20 by iosaf C&p-ing swissinfo and agencies

Dublin & Shengen & gay marriage & zurich football club votes today.

Switzerland is not a member of the €U, but has moved steadily closer to the €U in the last years, signing up to very important agreements on many issues including banking, secrecy, exchange of information, migration and enviromentalism.

Thirteen EU member states as well as Norway and Iceland are signatories to the Schengen and Dublin treaties. Ireland and the UK are due to join later this year, while the new EU countries will participate at a later stage.

Under the accords, Switzerland would agree to abandon systematic identity checks on its borders but link up to a Europe-wide electronic database on wanted and missing persons, illegal immigrants and property.

Dublin & Shengen €U - tying hands & the knot.

The Swiss would also sign up to an agreement which allows member countries to reject asylum seekers if they have filed a request in another signatory country prior to coming to Switzerland.

Switzerland would only be the third non-EU member state to join the Schengen and Dublin agreements on closer police and asylum cooperation.

The treaties are part of a second set of bilateral accords with the EU and must be considered by ye in tandem with the enlargement and the draft constitution.

Both accords – part of a second series of bilateral treaties with the EU – were approved by the Swiss government and parliament last year.

But the rightwing Swiss People’s Party alongside the isolationist group, "Campaign for an Independent and Neutral Switzerland", collected enough signatures to force a nationwide vote on the issue.

So this morning the Swiss voted, and the polls have just closed. The Swiss are a people who don't believe in leaving polls open all day, if you're a voter, you wake up early and go ink your thumb. If you're so lazy that you don't leave your chalet before 12h00 then you're not participating in your society so won't take your obligations of franchise seriously enough. As a result the Swiss don't really count their "abstention" or non-votes.

They also like killing as many birds with one stone as is possible. So they also voted on a "same sex union" law, which thought falling short of the recent spanish "marriage act" would allow same sex couples the same legal rights and entitlements and recogntion under civil law as is afforded by both French and German states without allowing them adoption rights or full "married status".

And the people of Zurich got to vote In local ballots in the city of Zurich voters on a SFr121.3 million ($98.6 million) credit for a football stadium – one of four Swiss venues of the 2008 European football championship, jointly hosted by Switzerland and neighbouring Austria.

The same sex referendum is expected to be passed without much difficulty as is the Zurich football deal..

The ratification of the Shengen and Dublin treaties, is too close to call.

wave of foreign criminals entering the county. They also said it would compromise Switzerland’s sovereignty and that the accord was a step towards full EU membership.

Some leftwing groups are also opposed to the Schengen and Dublin accords because of reservations about data protection rules.

But supporters say participation in the Schengen Information System (SIS) and the European fingerprint database for asylum seekers, Eurodac, would make Switzerland a more secure place and help reduce the number of asylum applications. Another argument is that the Schengen three-month visa would give a boost to the tourism industry.

Three of the four main political parties, the business community as well as trade unions have all come out in favour of Schengen/Dublin.

It is one of two key foreign policy ballots in Switzerland this year. In September the electorate is due to decide on granting access to the Swiss labour market to citizens of the ten new EU member states.

The campaign ahead of the nationwide vote was marked by a controversy over the role of the justice minister, Christoph Blocher. He publicly broke ranks with the other members of the multi-party cabinet by declaring his opposition to the accords.

Under the principles of collegiality, the government is expected to present a united front once it has agreed a common position.

Latest opinion polls show a 55% majority in favour of the Schengen/Dublin treaties, but support has dropped considerably over the past few months. In april polled opinion stood at 62% for yes and 17% "don't know don't care" where as the "dunno if i can get up so early on a sunday morning" was yesterday estimated at only 10%, so as people have decided they have steadily decided "No".

Or as this is switzerland, they have decided-
No! Non! Nein! / Oui! Si! Ja!.

59% of the electorate declared an interest to vote.
The poll was carried out between May 17 and 21 among 1,226 people throughout Switzerland.

More or Less here are the arguments:-

The case for

The Schengen agreements permit free movement between EU member states by doing away with systematic checks on individuals at internal frontiers. The Treaty of Dublin, for its part, regulates asylum issues between the EU states and streamlines the asylum process.

The government believes it is vital that Switzerland participates in Schengen. It points out that bilateral police and customs cooperation agreements between Switzerland and its neighbours have not proved sufficient to combat modern forms of crime and that broader cooperation is called for.

In particular it argues that Switzerland needs access to EU data stored on the state-of-the-art SIS computer network system. It warns that "in the event of a 'go-it-alone’ policy, Switzerland risks becoming a weak point in European security".

Schengen membership would make the country’s borders more rather than less secure, the government argues. Swiss border guards would continue to carry out checks on individuals and goods. But instead of all checks taking place at the border, under Schengen checks could be carried out at different locations in the border zone.

Another feature of Schengen is the visa policy allowing tourists to travel throughout Europe without restriction. The authorities say Switzerland’s inclusion in this scheme could be a real boon to tourism.

The government also sees advantages for Switzerland through signing the Dublin Treaty.

The Dublin measures against multiple asylum applications in different countries should make Switzerland less attractive to asylum seekers in relation to other countries, it believes. The right to one asylum hearing in the whole of Europe should also prevent what is referred to as "asylum tourism".

The case against

Present at the launch of the government’s campaign was Justice Minister Christoph Blocher, whose rightwing Swiss People’s Party is bitterly opposed to Schengen/Dublin.

Hinting at his own lack of conviction, Blocher said the security and asylum situation in Switzerland would improve "if the system works".

But Blocher’s party colleagues are convinced that a yes vote on June 5 would compromise Switzerland’s security and lead to soaring crime.

Party president Ueli Maurer went as far as to say that Schengen was "the biggest threat" to the country’s sovereignty and security since the founding of the modern state in 1848.

A new advertising poster features cartoon images of men and women holding their hands up in horror at the thought of Schengen membership. "Security lost, jobs lost? No to Schengen!" reads the slogan.

"If Switzerland says yes to Schengen/Dublin that will mean the most attractive country in Europe doing away with border controls and opening its doors wide," the party says on its website.

"The result would be a grave loss of security entailing more criminal tourism, more illegal immigrants, more illegal workers and more unemployment."

€*.:.+$%@

I will of course give you details of the results in the comments as soon as they come in.