Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

[Descan]

Well, maybe. They DO have a navy. ... Or at least a boat or two.

[Stuebi]

Question: Why doesn't Switzerland into the EU? I'm pretty sure it is Europian... Does it also fish too much?

Short answer:

It was put up to vote in the nineties and was rejected by vote.

Longer answer:

- Switzerland supports its farmers with money, which leads to more diversity on the market and more products from swiss farms. Joining the EU would remove customs, and swiss farmers could not compete anymore with much cheaper alternatives from outside (even if the quality potentially suffers). Agriculture is and has allways been part of Switzerland as a whole, we're known for Cheese and Chocolate after all. A lot of people value this to an extent that they'd vote against the EU simply out of fear our Agriculture could bite the big one.

- Switzerland's "free democracy" would be in danger, or at least thats what most people think. By joining the EU we'd risk loosing our ability to vote on laws, and would take the power away from the people. We would have to adapt _ALL_ our laws and regulations to EU Standards.

- Some countries in the EU are doing rather bad, and the Euro had some up and downs. Switzerland on the other hand is pretty stable, and even manage pretty decently trough the Economy-Crisis. A lot of people think joining the EU would make life-standards worse, not to mention that we would have to move away from Swiss Francs to Euro, and I seriously never met anyone that "liked" that idea.

- I know a lot of people who are proud that Switzerland is somewhat "free" in that its not part of the EU. Sure, like the current situations proofs, we do not ahve power in foreign politics. But concerning intern matters, we can live our lives how we want. Not satisifed with a law? Put an initative up! An upcoming change pisses you off? Go for a Referendum! Dont like the current guy in charge of x? Vote him out!

Im also pretty sure that some people wouldnt want to join the EU out of spite, or stubborness. The fact that we're not part of the EU annoys a lot of countries and people (which shows especially on occassions like this vote, hit Twitter or read a  few Newspapers for some spiteful politician rage), and some consider this to be some form of "standing your ground". Its the ONE middle finger we can show the EU, that they cant tear down. They can bully us into chaning immigration policies, they can make snarky remarks at our expense on conferences or other occassions and they can indeed treat us like cheese eating super-racists. But they cant make us join the EU. And that is satisfying in itself.

[Helgoland]

so, forced globalization best globalization or wot

perry's ironclads all over again?

There's a pretty good argument that Perry's gunboat diplomacy was one of the best things that ever happened to Japan. Abolishing medieval stasis and so on.

Also no, not forced globalization - basic common sense. We can't let Switzerland do raisin picking; either they are our trusted and well-liked partners, or they continue with their "sovereignity == we can make stupid decisions and hurt our partners without bad consequences" logic and once again become the miserable starving piece of mountain territory that they were not too long ago. See if we care.

Seriously, I can't stress enough how pissed I am right now.

[scriver]

Why of all people would you be angry?

[Helgoland]

a) Because it's a major setback for the European idea.
b) Because it plays right into the hands of the anti-EU populists.
c) Because now there'll be loads of discussion about direct democracy again, a concept I'm very critical of.
d) Because I don't like the Swiss anyway.*


*The German-speaking Swiss, to be exact. To be honest, I don't like Austrians, Bavarians and many German peoples who also speak some sort of German either...

[Dutchling]

*The German-speaking Swiss, to be exact.

How can you not like German Swiss? Their accent is even more adorable than Austrian :3

[LordSlowpoke]

europe is handing out citizenship like candy anyway, regardless of euroscepticism or not - what's it to you if switzerland doesn't? who would even want to live there if it's as bad as you think of it vOv

[Helgoland]

It's a very nice place, LS, and the issue isn't citizenship - it's the right of abode (did I translate that properly?), and I'm against restrictions of movement on principle. Sometimes they're a sad necessity, like with mass migration from South and Middle America into the US, but with Switzerland that's just not the case.

Dutchling: I actually have a rather strong dislike of most German* cultures. German high culture (Beethoven, Goethe, Heine, Kafka, Brecht etc etc) is great, but the local culture is generally rather provincial. Plus I've had bad experiences when visiting the German part of Switzerland. The French part's great, though.


*German as in German-speaking: Germany, Austria, the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Greater Germany, so to speak

[Helgoland]

-Goddamn 504's taking away our jobs-

[Stuebi]

*The German-speaking Swiss, to be exact. To be honest, I don't like Austrians, Bavarians and many German peoples who also speak some sort of German either...

And there I was almost tempted to write a response.

Anyway. Read some addiotional articles about the thing. And im pretty confident that the whole vote will be nullified because the initative violates the current agreements. Except of course, the EU actually budges and agrees to negiotate the terms. But the odds for that happening are nonexistant. I wouldnt want that anyway, we profit in a ton of ways from people immigrating, or at least enough that it balances some of the worse aspects of the deal.

[Kicior]

Actually, why would the Swiss want to be in the UE? How would they benefit from it?

[XXSockXX]

I don't know, I think the reaction to this thing is blown out of proportion. It's not really an issue with xenophobia, since it mostly affects Germans in the German-speaking part and Italians in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. Then it's about a quota system on immigration, which is very different from real isolation.

Yes, it might hurt the Swiss economy, which has benefited from foreigners working there. On the other hand, with almost 25% of the working population being foreigners, it's understandable that people will feel like local culture is threatened. I thought it was a bit better, I know people working in Switzerland who've made the effort of learning the Swiss dialect, but this seems to be a problem. Especially in the health sector it's weird to have to talk to someone you have trouble communicating with.

A lot of the negative reaction in the EU seems to be fear of anti-EU parties gaining steam in the upcoming EU elections. This is the fault of both our national and european politicians too, who are not doing a great job explaining why the EU is a good thing, and who are quick to dismiss concerns as provincial and unfounded.

[LordSlowpoke]

by the way, stuehl, do you guys still have that one thing where the residents of a given area gathered around and voted on whenever to accept someone as a swiss citizen or not?

i think that was only in a few cantons, but was awesome and solves every issue i'd have with immigration fiveever (that's more than fourever, americans told me so)

but then i heard that's being abolished from the very same source sooooooo

It's a very nice place, LS, and the issue isn't citizenship - it's the right of abode (did I translate that properly?), and I'm against restrictions of movement on principle. Sometimes they're a sad necessity, like with mass migration from South and Middle America into the US, but with Switzerland that's just not the case.

...which, sadly, hardly deals with the problem that such right is granted to all eu citizens without even looking at the length of their citizenship

in theory, it's fine, but as much as i hate to put the infodumps that i keep getting from that one guy who at some point i learned was polish and is still talking about the goddamn birdhouses from time to time to use it's relatively common for f.ex. west africans to come to locations such as krakow, woo women (or men, depends on gender) marry them and leave a week after with a sweet polish passport that grants entry to western europe

which is a pretty damn good deal actually, i'd do it if i were west african too

also this is the point where after mentioning the birdhouses i keep being bothered with again i would like to ask if birdhouses are sort of euphemism or politically charged issue in poland this shit is ridiculous

[Stuebi]

Actually, why would the Swiss want to be in the UE? How would they benefit from it?

You'd have to look that up over Google, but one thing I know is that we'd ahve to pay a LOT less on customs when importing stuff. You seriously do NOT wanna know how much we pay for Tabletop-Minis over here.

Yes, it might hurt the Swiss economy, which has benefited from foreigners working there. On the other hand, with almost 25% of the working population being foreigners, it's understandable that people will feel like local culture is threatened. I thought it was a bit better, I know people working in Switzerland who've made the effort of learning the Swiss dialect, but this seems to be a problem. Especially in the health sector it's weird to have to talk to someone you have trouble communicating with.

This is also a good point. 25% is a pretty scary number for many people, and combined with the cliches that were mentioned before, it was a lot easier to win people for the vote. I still think it wasnt a very bright idea, because you could tackle this issue with a bit less of an "Stay the fuck out"-attitude, but there are certainly a lot of concerns I share with some of these guys.

Also, I agree on the whole overreaction thing. But this happens every single time we vote about anything concerning foreigners. 

[Sheb]

I don't see why, having lots of people come to work and pay taxes for me sounds amazing.

But yeah, Switzerland cannot pick and choose what it does with the EU.