The Swiss have voted to end freedom of movement for EU citizens
Published:
February 9, 2014 at 9:38pm
In a referendum this weekend, the Swiss have voted (50.3%) to end freedom of movement for EU citizens in their country. The vote invalidates the agreement on freedom of movement between Switzerland the European Union, which came into effect in 2007 after years of negotiations and a referendum vote in 2000.
Chris Kalin and Eric Major of Henley & Partners will right now be at their calculators, working out how this is going to affect demand from their clients for Maltese passports, given that one of the main attractions WAS freedom of movement in Switzerland.
61 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26108597
Just talked to my Canadian/Swiss lawyer son about the result.
He said the majority of the cantons voted in favour and that the citizen vote was very close. Since the German-speaking cantons are predominant, and further to the right, the pendulum was always swinging in their direction.
When I asked him if the Maltese citizen scheme could have played a part, being a lawyer, he just commented that it did not help.
All this does is it forces the staff at Identity Malta to work night shifts too. Those passports MUST be issued before the durn Swiss close their borders for good.
My colleague ‘Passaport Malti’ has been tracking aircraft landings in Malta. Some are flying straight in from places as far away as South Africa. It figures. If you’re Zimbabwean and in Mugabe’s inner circle, what better way to secure your escape route than to hop across to South Africa and give Manuel a tinkle?
Won’t matter, my friend. Done deed. Just try to enter Switzerland tomorrow with a Maltese passport. Be prepared to line up as an alien. Efficiency is their hallmark.
Identiy Malta working night shifts? They don’t even work day shifts. Henley has ordered to stamp ‘OK’ on anything put on their desks.
The South African government was an ally to Gaddafi right to the very end. They say most of Libya’s wealth is still tied up there. Maybe you should get you colleague to track the Libyan PM flight movements. It was in Zurich, Switzerland last week before it made an emergency landing in Malta. Libyan assets are still frozen or not?
What, you mean the referendum is held on a Sunday, and the law is enacted on a Monday?
Swiss-alicious.
I wonder if our Joseph will stamp his feet now. They might chuck a Toblerone his way.
BREAKING NEWS, Harry!
China clamps down on nudists!
Nudism has been declared “an immoral activity” and “contrary to traditional Chinese culture” and anyone found practising the Freikörperkultur will be hauled away for five to ten days of “reharmonisation”.
Progressives and liberals, beware.
Baxxter, how does one ‘clamp down’ on a nudist? Where do you place the clamp?
Nipple clamps. I think you can get them from Homemate.
On my way there now.
I feel the below is worth posting.
From the comments board of The Independent on Sunday.
Joe Martinelli says:
09 February 2014 14:21
As of March 10, Malta had already become ‘a land of opportunity’, so what the PM is stating now, we all know, is old news. Malta already proved that it became a land of opportunity, especially for:
The staff of Super 1.
The PM who leased his personal car to the government and is receiving 7000 euro a year for the privilege of driving his own car!
The ‘friends and friends of friends’ who were given plum jobs.
The occupiers of the 4th Floor at Mile End.
The recipients of IOUs signed by Jo-Jo prior to March 9.
The Labour Party the recipient of 10 million euro gift from Jo-Jo & Co.
The new AFM commander Major err.. promoted Brigadier in 3 weeks.
The ‘new’ CoP who replaced the former CoP who kept Dalli’s file open.
The 1000 new ‘Civil Servants’, more likely, Labour lackeys.
The appointment as ‘envoy’ of Sai Mizzi Liang @ 150,000 euro a year.
The backbencher sent a ‘plastic bubble’ so she could catch a flight she didn’t need to catch.
There’s lots more, but the above amply proves that ‘Malta Taghna Biss’ is not only a land of opportunity but has the world’s longest and deepest money trough strictly reserved for ‘il-hbieb tal-hbieb’.
The biggest one of them all is missing from the list. The one which will be reaping at least Eur 200 million over 5 years.
Henley & Something.
For them, Malta is indeed the Land of Opportunity.
The Swiss are no fools.
The true interest of the motherland supercedes everything else within the Confederation.
Here in Malta the situation is completely different.
The country did not heed Sant’s grand plan of Svizzra fil-Mediterran.
What Svizzra?
In Malta we are after baksheesh and qamh.
“Se la Patria e’ perduta e’ inutile vivere”.
I am not in the habit of quoting Benito Mussolini, for obvious reasons, but these words, attributed to him, when addressing the last remaining loyal officers of the Republican Guard are very apt indeed.
Whenever we talked about Anglu Farrugia being uncomfortable with the businessmen who frequented the 4th. floor we always thought in terms of Maltese businessmen. At least, I did.
Did he know about the IIP and Henley & Partners? It is a given that very few people knew but some of the top brass had to know.
Anglu Farrugia’s iced-bun was one of the biggest. They had to keep him happy and not talking.
I have thought about this before.
My conclusion is that Anglu Farrugia did not know the details, although he probably knew, or at least he was being told, that something big was going on at Level 4. I think that Level 4 was out of bounds for him.
Had he known the details, it would have been very risky to axe him. I think he was not being trusted.
In the same interview with The Sunday Times in which he referred to the Fourth Floor, Anglu had said that he was not being informed about Labour’s policies, including the policy on the reduction of the tariffs on water, which is why he gave a confused answer when he appeared on Xarabank oh eh oh.
I also think that the men on the Fourth Floor were probably worried that he may have known something – especially after he made reference to the Fourth Floor – which is why he was sent on a long-distance trip to the Falkland Islands during the electoral campaign.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130203/interview/-Political-murder-.456016
So true. In retrospect, everything starts to make sense. Bizzilla.
Can an international treaty be unilaterally cancelled as a result of a referendum vote?
[Daphne – Obviously, David, yes it can. If it weren’t possible, there would have been no referendum to begin with.]
The EU-Switzerland treaty will probably have to be renogotiated.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26111637
Read my lips David. ‘Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur’
What is freely given may freely be taken away, much like the post of Prime Minister I guess.
That wasn’t freely given. It was bought.
Emma Corbin, Mary Swan, Nina Petros and Lady Bird will be having problems entering Switzerland if they decide to buy a passport from Henley & Partners.
Emma Corbin has already been to Switzerland. She was held there, under arrest, with an Israeli colleague, on accusations of fraud. The arrest was reported in Ha’aretz. Curiously, it was also reported elsewhere that Nina Petros had been arrested.
As unfortunate as this is, I can only say ‘bloody good for them!’. Unfortunately, the EU is not entirely made of countries such as France, Germany, Austria and other long-standing democracies. There are still a handful of a### h### countries where full-fledged democracy is still a remote dream (it goes without saying that Malta is one of them).
The strongest anti-EU vote came from the German-speaking cantons.
PS , and since when was Germany a “long’-standing” democracy. Up to 1989 it was still a country divided into the free west and communist east by the Berlin wall.Before that it was originally Prussia and a group of German provinces that Bismark united into a whole country that became powerful enough to unlease two world wars.
UnleasH
Come on now. Democracy also means the people’s participation in structures of power, and freedom of speech. Germany had that long before Hitler came along. Some of the political cartoons of the Thirty Years’ War make The Times of Malta look like Stalin’s Pravda.
Post-89 Germany is modelled on West Germany.
This might not the place to discuss German history in detail, but it’s good to highlight that the states formed the German Empire were not far from the democratic model despite that turmoil was present. Turmoil is a characteristic of democracy not of dictatorship (can you see any turmoil in Malta, China or North Korea? – no!).
Dear Daphne, this is a setback for us Maltese too, don’t you agree?
[Daphne – I think your comment distinctly odd, coming as it does from somebody who voted against EU membership and who habitually votes Labour. Make up your mind.]
Eh hija, issa Malta globali. Ftit iehor issir Malta planetarja.
Malta tal-Aljeni u Estra Terrestri.
Jew Malta galettika u Muscat isir prim ministru tal-univers.
Manuel Mallia su Marte.
Tee hee hee.
Iva, bi PRIM MINISTRU VIZJONARJU according to today’s news. What a load of tosh.
Dirizzjoni kullimkien. Malta universali. Road map: Kollox jimxi, Kollox accettabli, basta l-ewwel u qabel kollox, hemm kemxa flus tajba ghal Malta.
Dear C.Fenech , I think that we deserve it , don’t you agree ?
Globalization result
Alfred Sant 1 Henley and Less Partners 0
http://www.lematin.ch/suisse/tendance-initiative-udc-limmigration/story/13798297
It was a very tight and quite fierce fight with all French cantons and Zurich voting no and the Germans and Italians voting yes.
The idea is not to close the borders but to go back to the contingents of peoples.
The whole thing will start in three years’ time by which time the battered politicians on the No side will have hopefully bashed out an agreement.
The first person to congratulate the Swiss was Marie le Pen. Says it all, doesn’t it!
Did Alfred Sant tell the ‘No’ voters to go out and celebrate?
One of the locks has been changed, let’s see what is next? American visa
Worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXLsctS-088
In this video, Mr. Major admits that the Austrian program does not lead to large numbers of new citizens, and that it requires a number of commitments, contrary to what the Maltese prime minister has been suggesting.
All th Arms traffickers who paid their citizenship deposit fee must be seriously pissed off…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26111637
The Swiss government listens to their citizens.
How about Muscat’s government?
They value their citizenship not like our PM. Good for them. They’re protecting theirs and we are giving ours away.
Remember the videos of the Chinese singing Ma Tghamlu Xejn Mal-Perit Mintoff? They will soon be singing Malta Taghna Lkoll.
Our friend Mr. Kalin is also a proud Swiss citizen. Will he comment on this?
On the one hand Alfred Sant must feel vindicated, whilst on the other Muscat knows he has just lost an important chunk of his passport clients.
I never wanted to go there anyway, it’s all snow and cuckoo clocks.
Kemm tahsibhom boloh lil qarrejja tieghek Daphne? Tistmhom sew lin-nies e!!! Tghidli xejn.. Jekk Switzerland mhix fl-EU, Switzerland qieghda fiz-zona Schengen, allura lilna mhi se taffetwana xejn. Kompli prova tmejjel bin-nies…
[Daphne – Such catastrophic ignorance.]
I was under the impression that the referendum was meant to decide on the issue whether immigration should be restricted.
It was Europe that pleaded that such legislation would restrict the freedom of movement of European citizens in Switzerland.
However I have noticed that hush-hush other countries are also reviewing their statutes regarding immigration ever since our Joseph Muscat has put our citizenship up for sale.
This makes for an interesting read. Doesn’t it ring a bell?
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/truth-about-che-guevara
Would not be surprised if applicants to the IIP Scheme asked that the €650,000 price tag be cut back now that Switzerland is out of the equation.
Mallia said, this morning, that passports can now be purchased from Lidl’s discount section.
See what is happening in China:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10608245/China-kills-off-discussion-on-Weibo-after-internet-crackdown.html
That’s a really BIG brother.
I don’t want my country to have anything to do with these communists who silently oppress their own people.
The result of this referendum is not the last word on the relationship between Switzerland and the EU. As an EU commissioner has said, that agreement is not a piece of Swiss cheese with holes in it.
There is a lesson in that remark for any local politician who thinks that he can chip and chop Malta’s links with the EU to suit only his aspirations.
And 2017 will be a bigger blow to the EU if as predicted the British vote to leave.
[Daphne – If the British vote to leave the Union, it will also be a massive blow for Malta, Ross. Hundreds of Maltese people are working in Britain, or making their lives there, and hundreds of young people study at British universities free of charge. They would not be able to do this if Britain drops out of the equation. Britain is not just another EU member state where Malta is concerned. It is the natural point of reference for many Maltese in terms of work and certainly in terms of tertiary education. Then we have the trade factors to consider. Malta imports a huge amount of stuff from Britain: again, this is because British brands are a natural point of reference due to historical and cultural reasons. We have British fashion chains on our high streets, British foods on our supermarket shelves, and so much more. All this would be subject to levies on importation from outside the EU. Our familiar products would disappear from the shelves or be priced out of the market.]
Joseph Muscat will be EU president at that point.
I wonder how many of those who voted for this have dual passports – Swiss and EU – and can freely move across borders while denying others the same right.
The Swiss have the right idea. Malta should do the same with regards to illegal immigrants.
Switzerland’s voted to block all immigrants. That means you too.
Contacted for a reaction, Malta’s Foreign Minister George Vella said the Swiss decision has to be respected.
“This is a decision taken by a sovereign state which has to be respected. It is up to them to determine what type of relations they want with the EU,” he said.
Asked whether this decision will have consequences on the relations between Switzerland and the EU, Dr Vella said it was too early to say. – Times of Malta today.
Hilarious. The Minister is still unsure whether this will have any consequences. Ask Henley & Something, they sure will tell you what they think.
And of course he would say that their decision should be respected. What else could he say? First his Government goes on to sell passports which would give the buyers rights to enter, amongst many other countries, Switzerland and then he expects them to lump that?
I am sure that the Swiss are anticipating a ripple effect of the Maltese sale of passports scheme in all the other EU countries now this has been “sanctioned” by the EU. You reap what you sow. This is the price we have to pay for this government’s incompetence.
Knowing that he is lined up to become Malta’s next President sends shivers down my spine. He clearly hasn’t got the ‘nous’ for the job and will only exacerbate the embarrassment which this country is facing due to Muscat’s over-blown ego, in the rest of the world.