Information and documents on the institutional agreement

On 26 May 2021, the Federal Council decided not to sign the institutional agreement with the EU owing to significant differences in key areas (Citizens' Rights Directive, wage protection and state aid). After six rounds of talks starting in January 2021, whereby Switzerland sought a sufficient degree of convergence regarding the substantive issues, the parties gained a better understanding of each other's positions but did not succeed in reconciling their stances.

Information and explanatory documents on the institutional agreement

Letter from the Federal Council to the President of the European Commission, 26.05.2021 (Unofficial translation; original text in French prevails) (PDF, 2 Pages, 270.7 kB, English)

Alternatives for negotiations: Assessment by Nicolas Levrat of the University of Geneva (PDF, 60 Pages, 12.0 MB, French)

Alternatives for negotiations: Assessment by Michael Ambühl and Daniela Scherer of ETH ZurichExpert (PDF, 28 Pages, 1.6 MB, German)

Timeline of Swiss-EU relations since 2013 (PDF, 2 Pages, 241.1 kB, English)

Institutional agreement: outcome of talks between Switzerland and the EU on Citizens' Rights Directive (CRD), wage protection and state aid issues (PDF, 2 Pages, 242.9 kB, English)

Mandat d’examen en vue d’éliminer de manière autonome des divergences entre l’ordre juridique suisse et le droit européen (PDF, 1 Page, 206.0 kB, French)

Report on the negotiations on an institutional framework agreement between Switzerland and the EU (PDF, 34 Pages, 939.6 kB, English)

Draft text of the institutional agreement (the draft of the institutional agreement is not available in English) (PDF, 34 Pages, 1.0 MB, French)

Institutional agreement Switzerland-EU: explanations (in German) (PDF, 23 Pages, 1.0 MB, German)


Institutional agreement Switzerland - EU: key points in brief (PDF, 7 Pages, 148.5 kB, English)