From within Switzerland:
– Press Release, The Federal Council, 09.02.2014
– February 9th 2014 Demonstration against the outcome of the vote
On Sunday evening, only a few short hours after the vote result was known, a group of about 800 protestors gathered in Bern, some wearing masks and waving the black and red anarchist flags. Carrying banners with anti-fascist slogans the demonstrators protested against the “YES” vote to the mass immigration initiative. Other so-called “spontaeneous” protests also occured in Zurich, Basel and Luzern. – (See: Der Bund)
– A large amount, if not the majority, of reporting from Swiss news sources was negative towards the vote result. News organisations spared nothing as they targetted the vote results from all negative angles possible. A great many of these negative angles were based on assumptions and presuptions of what action the EU might or could take as a result, or in retaliation, of the vote result.
Additionally there was an incredible amount of negativity being spread through social media sites such as Facebook with numerous pages springing up around the disatisfaction of the outcome. Such was the level and noise of the discontent that the media began, but only in very small proportion, to report on it: “The Left are blubbering” – Der Bund
– March 1st Demonstration in Bern (Source)
– Free Movement of Persons agreement with Croatia not signed.
Due to the resulting change to the Swiss Constitution, this agreement could not be signed.
“…the new constitutional provisions exclude the conclusion of new agreements that are not compatible with the introduction of quotas for immigrants. The Federal Council is therefore not in a position to sign the agreement to extend the freedom of movement to Croatia in its current version.” – (Source)
From the EU:
– Threats
Following the vote EU leaders spared no time in letting Switzerland know that they were not pleased with the outcome. Threats were made most of all against Switzerland’s economy. (Reuters) (RT) (USA Today)
Even before the vote was taken the EU was already warning that the Free Movement of People agreement could not be renegotiated. (Source) This is in direct contridiction to Article 18 of the agreement which allows revision of the contract by either party.
– Actions
Several actions were taken in direct response to the Swiss vote.
- Talks on cross-border electricity agreement on hold (Source)
- Switzerland’s partnership status for Horizon 2020 (FP8) has been changed (Source)
- Switzerland’s partnership status for Erasmus+ (student exchange programme) has been changed (Source)