Brussels – The historic package of EU–Switzerland agreements signed on 2 March 2026 highlights two co-existing realities. Brussels and Bern appear ready to deepen and strengthen their relationship, yet the Swiss Confederation remains firmly uninterested in taking it to the next level – namely, full EU membership.
Ten years after withdrawing its EU accession application, not even a more threatened security environment and growing transatlantic instability – exacerbated by US President Trump’s tariffs and actions – has changed Switzerland’s mind about joining the European Union. In other words, aligning standards across the vast majority of policy areas is acceptable, but revisiting a process that was started and immediately halted more than 30 years ago is not.
The new package updates four existing agreements – covering air transport, land transport, the free movement of persons, and mutual recognition of conformity assessment – which already secure Switzerland’s access to the Single Market. It also introduces new agreements enabling full Swiss participation in EU markets for food safety, electricity, health, and space, alongside provisions on dispute resolution, State aid, financial contributions, and involvement in EU research and education programmes.
As a cornerstone in the relationship between the two sides – reached after more than ten years of stop-start negotiations – the agreement implicitly demonstrates that strengthened cooperation between “equal partners” is the highest ambition achievable. No reference has been made to EU accession, either in the text or during the press conference, with only a mention of a “high-level dialogue” hinting at the “possible further development of bilateral relations.”
However, the package of agreements is still requires ratification on both sides, and uncertainty continues to hang over the process in Bern. Convincing the Federal Assembly will be important, but ultimately it is the Swiss citizens who hold the decisive vote in a referendum expected in 2027.
Adding to the complexity, on 14 June 2026 another referendum – the initiative No to a Switzerland of 10 million, aimed at limiting migration in the Confederation – could jeopardise the implementation of the agreements. Since 1992, the EU has become well aware of how unpredictable Swiss referendums can be when citizens are asked to decide on issues that affect them directly.
The state of EU–Switzerland relations
Switzerland applied for EU membership in May 1992. However, its application never progressed to negotiations, as it was immediately frozen following the December 1992 popular referendum, which rejected the agreement to join the European Economic Area (EEA) by 50.3% of the vote. The Swiss government decided to suspend the accession process until further notice, before officially withdrawing its application in June 2016.
In 1994, Bern and Brussels began negotiations to define a special relationship outside the EEA framework, ensuring economic integration between the two partners. These negotiations resulted in ten treaties signed between 1999 and 2004, which made a large share of EU law applicable within the Swiss Confederation’s borders. Switzerland is a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the Schengen Area, and the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).
In 2014, negotiations were launched on a broader institutional framework, but they were repeatedly suspended in 2018 and 2021, as the two sides were unable to find common ground on key policy areas – including free movement of persons, air transport, carriage of goods and passengers by rail and road, trade in agricultural products, and mutual recognition of standards.
Negotiations were relaunched in March 2024 and concluded nine months later. The consultation process in Switzerland lasted almost a year, after which the Federal Council gave the green light to the agreement in November 2025. Following the official signing of the package of agreements in Brussels on 2 March 2026, the ratification process in Bern still requires a popular referendum, expected in 2027.
