GENEVA: Switzerland yesterday set out plans for new immigration quotas, four months after voters narrowly approved curbs and set the country on a collision course with Brussels.
The Swiss government, or Federal Council, said the limits on work and residence permits would come into force in February 2017.
That deadline was set down in a referendum in February which was lauded by eurosceptics at home and abroad. “Quotas will apply to all types of permit valid for four months or more,” a government statement said.
It added that to meet the needs of the labour market, it would foster using “the potential of the workforce already available in Switzerland.”
It also said that draft legislation would follow at the end of the year, and that curbs would not be ironclad.
“The Federal Council has refrained from setting a fixed, inflexible target for reducing immigration. A target of this type would make it impossible to respond to the changing economic and jobs situation when regulating immigration,” it said.
Switzerland is not in the 28-nation European Union, but has a series of decade-old treaties that govern ties with the bloc, its top economic partner.
They include a deal giving EU citizens free access to wealthy Switzerland’s labour market.
Critics said that caused breakneck immigration and unfair competition for local workers, offsetting the gains of Swiss companies’ equal footing in the EU economy. Under Switzerland’s system of direct democracy, however, the people have the final say on a huge array of issues.
AFP
