From the present to the future

Welcome to our last course week! Time flies, does it not? You may remember that at the beginning of this FutureLearn course I welcomed you on the River Rhine. I said that the Rhine spanned several European countries, and that seen in this manner Basel is in a truly European location. I also pointed out that Switzerland is in a rather special position because it is fully surrounded by the EU and the EEA without itself being a member of either. In our course, we have learned about the position of Switzerland in Europe, looking at a number of difficult issues among others in the fields of money and migration.

We saw that Switzerland is by no means a legal island that can act independently of its neighbours and of the rest of the world. Rather, there is a high degree of interconnectedness, in particular, economically. We also learned that in order to facilitate exchange, Switzerland has entered into a large number of agreements with its neighbours, in particular, through the EFTA Convention and thorough the Swiss EU sectoral or bilateral agreements. In our course, we have attempted to gain a certain insight into this particular legal situation. At the end of our course, we will consider the present state of the legal and political relationship between Switzerland and the EU against the background of the discussion of the previous weeks.

Based on the most recent developments, we will turn our attention to different scenarios for the future. Returning to the key word of money used at the beginning of this course, the example of a potential future agreement on financial services will be used to discuss different approaches of association to the EU’s internal market in demanding areas, such as taking over EU harmonisation, or as an alternative, an approach based on equivalence. On a more general level, the future of the Swiss EU relationship and the position of non-Member States vis-a-vis important European organisations, such as the EU and the EEA will be considered. Once again, we look forward to working with you!