LONDON â€" A decision by Switzerland to limit migration from other European countries has provoked a sharp response from officials of the European Union.
The federal government in Bern announced on Wednesday it was extending quotas on long-term residence permits granted to citizens of eight Eastern European states and anticipated expanding the measure to include migrants from Western Europe.
Switzerland is not a member of the 27-member Union. However, under a 1999 freedom of movement agreement, EU citizens are allowed to live and work there, as 1.2 million of them currently do.
Under pressure from a vociferous anti-immigration campaign, and faced with 80,000 extra arrivals from the rest of Europe each year, the government has invoked a safeguard clause that allows it to set quotas.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, was among officials who rebuked the Swiss. “These measures disregard the great benefits that the free movement of persons brings to the citizens of both Switzerland and the E.U.,†she said.
She also warned Bern that the distinction it was making between migrants from different parts of the Continent violated the 1999 agreement.
The Swiss announcement hinted that the move had less to do with raw numbers than with an attempt to assuage right-wing populist opinion.
The government said the quotas were needed to make immigration more acceptable to society. According to Simonetta Sommaruga, the Swiss justice minister who announced the curbs, “It’s a fact that there is unease among the population, and it’s necessary to take this unease seriously.â€
The Swiss action was the latest evidence that immigration is being pushed up the European policy agenda at a time when the Continent is confronting low growth, high unemployment and austerity cuts that are putting pressure on social welfare expenditure.
In many countries, the economic crisis has spurred a backlash against immigration that mainstream politicians are finding hard to ignore.
The claims put by anti-immigration groups in Switzerland find echoes in the rest of Europe: Migrants are only interested in claiming welfare benefits, they jump the queue for subsidized housing, and they push up crime rates.
It is a climate in which advocates of free movement, who can quote statistics showing hard-working, tax-paying migrants are a positive asset to their host countries, have been placed on the defensive.
At one extreme of the anti-immigrant backlash is Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn movement.
At the other are groups such as Britain’s United Kingdom Independence Party, which is predicting a coming onslaught of migrants from Romania and Bulgaria.
Citizens of the two Eastern European states will have the right to seek a wider range of jobs elsewhere in the European Union when rules for them are relaxed next year, although there is evidence that relatively few will chose to move to Britain.
Mainstream parties have meanwhile toughened their stance on the immigration issue, apparently reflecting fears of a loss of electoral support to anti-immigrant rivals.
Are the Swiss pandering to prejudice with their quota rules? Is there an argument for restricting immigration in the current European economic climate, or should the Continent’s politicians be stressing the benefits of free movement? Let us know your views.
