Marušić: There should be no discrimination against member states

(Hina) - Croatia faces double discrimination after an immigration quota referendum in Switzerland and the decision of that country not to sign the existing text of the agreement on access to its labour market for Croatia's nationals

(Hina) - Croatia faces double discrimination after an immigration quota referendum in Switzerland and the decision of that country not to sign the existing text of the agreement on access to its labour market for Croatia's nationals, Croatia's Assistant Foreign Minister Hrvoje Marušić said on Sunday.

Croatia believes that there should be no discrimination against European Union member-states when it comes to the access to the Swiss labour market and also insists on the free movement of workers as one of the four fundamental freedoms.

"Croatia's position is, as stated by (Foreign) Minister Vesna Pusić, that there must not be any discrimination among (EU) member-states and that the free movement of workers is one of the four fundamental freedoms in the EU. Furthermore, in its relations with Switzerland this is perhaps the most important freedom having a symbolic dimension apart from the economic one," Marušić said.

Earlier on Sunday, the Swiss Foreign Ministry reported that Switzerland would not sign an agreement opening its labour market to Croatian citizens in its present form and this decision ensued after on 9 February the Swiss voted in a referendum to restrict immigration.

Swiss minister Simonetta Sommaruga on Saturday called her Croatian counterpart Vesna Pusić to tell her that Bern would not be able to sign in its present form the agreement on expanding free access to the Swiss labour market to new European Union member countries, Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Schwander told Agence France-Presse.

He said Sommaruga informed Brussels about the need to revise the agreement and that she said she was seeking a solution that would guarantee that Croats were not discriminated against.

The Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Ministry confirmed on Sunday that Pusic had spoken with Sommaruga on the phone and that Sommaruga informed her that Switzerland would not be able to sign the agreement in its present form.

On 15 July 2013, 15 days after Croatia's EU accession, Bern and Brussels initialled an additional protocol to the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons regulating a transitional ten-year period during which the number of permits for Croats systematically increases. At the end of the period, Croatian citizens would have full freedom of movement in Switzerland as other EU citizens. The two sides were to have embarked on the signing of the protocol but the outcome of the referendum has changed everything.

 

This past week, EU representatives threatened with freezing access to the European research programme Horizon 2020 as well as participation in a student exchange programme if Switzerland brought the treaty with Croatia into question.

In the meantime the European Commission decided to suspend negotiations on Switzerland's participation in the European research programme Horizon 2020 and the Erasmus student exchange programme after Bern decided not to sign a protocol which would expand the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons (AFMP) to Croatia as a new European Union member.

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