UK and Switzerland are to maintain a status quo regardless of Brexit
The United Kingdom and Switzerland have signed an agreement guaranteeing to continue certain immigration rights post-Brexit, which will enable citizens from both countries to continue to freely move and work between the two nations, even in the event of a disorderly (no-deal) Brexit.
The news provides a grain of certainty in a desert of the continuing unknown, at a time when it is still uncertain whether Britain will leave the European Union under some transitional arrangement that would provide workers with similar guarantees to the Swiss deal, crash out of the EU with no deal and therefore no rights for visa-free travel for workers, delay the process further via an extension of the article 50 clause used to trigger the UK’s departure, or hold another referendum – with just over a month until the UK is scheduled to leave the EU.
The news is likely to be welcomed by contractors, who may already have been put off looking at European contract roles until there is more certainty surrounding what their immigration status will be post-Brexit: contractors can now take on roles in Switzerland in the confidence that they will have the legal right to work there, regardless of the outcome of Brexit. Switzerland has a buoyant contract market and attracts substantial numbers of British contractors each year.
Under the agreement, signed yesterday under the Swiss Government’s excellently-named “Mind the Gap” Brexit strategy, both Swiss and British citizens will retain the rights already bestowed under the existing Switzerland-EU Agreement of the Free Movement of Persons (AFMP), meaning citizens from both countries will have the right to live and work in the other. The rights granted are valid for life. The agreement also allows for some freedom of provision of services, regulates social security claims and allows for the joint-recognition of professional qualifications.
Switzerland and the UK have already signed a number of agreements relating to trade, road and air transport and insurance in an effort to maintain the existing mutual rights and obligations between the countries as far as possible after the UK leaves the EU.
The Swiss Government has also allocated a quota of 3,500 Brits that will be able to work in the Confederacy post-Brexit. The Swiss State Secretariat for Migration said: “Switzerland and the UK are seeking to reach a temporary fall-back arrangement in the event of the UK’s disorderly withdrawal to mitigate the undesired consequences of an abrupt discontinuation of freedom of movement for people wishing to take up work in the respective countries. Independently of this, the Federal Council decided on 13 February to create a separate quota as a temporary measure, allowing 3,500 British citizens to work in Switzerland.”
26th February 2019.
Sources:
https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home/aktuell/news/2019/2019-02-25.html
