Swiss voters rejected the European Economic Area in a referendum on 6 December 1992, and the government then put its EU membership application on hold, withdrawing it formally in 2016. Since then, Switzerland has chosen to work with the EU through more than 120 bilateral agreements instead of joining.
Switzerland came close to a closer relationship with the EU in 1992. As a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), it signed the agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA) on 2 May 1992, and on 22 May 1992 its government applied to open membership negotiations with the European Community. On 6 December 1992, however, Swiss voters and cantons rejected the EEA Agreement in a referendum. The membership application was put on hold, and in January 1993 the Federal Council, the Swiss government, announced that it would not start negotiations. In a letter dated 27 July 2016, Switzerland informed the EU that the application should be considered withdrawn.
Instead, Switzerland chose what it calls the “bilateral approach”: agreements negotiated sector by sector with the EU. There are more than 120 of them, including a free trade agreement from 1972. The most important came in two packages. Bilaterals I, signed in 1999 and in force since 2002, cover the free movement of persons, air and land transport, agricultural trade, technical barriers to trade, public procurement and research. Bilaterals II, signed in 2004, include Switzerland’s participation in Schengen and in the Dublin system for asylum applications. Switzerland is therefore in the Schengen Area without being in the EU.
Example
In 2014, a majority of Swiss voters approved a popular initiative “against mass immigration”, which challenged free movement with the EU. Because the main bilateral agreements are legally linked, ending one would end them all. The Swiss parliament implemented the vote in 2016 without quotas for EU citizens, and in September 2020 nearly 62% of voters rejected a new proposal to end free movement.
Debates and limits
The EU has long argued that the bilateral agreements are too static: unlike the EEA, they lack a regular mechanism to follow changes in EU law and an effective way to settle disputes. Negotiations on an institutional framework agreement started in 2014 and stumbled over questions such as the conditions for EU companies providing services in Switzerland and the role of the Court of Justice of the EU in settling disputes, until the Swiss government withdrew on 26 May 2021.
A new package, often called “Bilaterals III”, was agreed at the end of 2024 and signed on 2 March 2026. It adjusts the existing single market agreements and, according to the Swiss government, includes exceptions to protect key interests in areas such as free movement of persons, land transport, electricity and food safety. The Federal Council presents it as a way to secure the bilateral approach while preserving Switzerland’s political room for manoeuvre, and sent it to the Swiss parliament on 13 March 2026. How much EU law Switzerland should take over, and who settles disputes, remain the central questions of the Swiss debate. A European Parliament fact sheet expects a referendum, most likely in 2027.