EU negotiations acted out

With the adoption of the popular initiative against mass immigration in February 2014, Switzerland must now decide on the demands it wishes to present as part of its renegotiations with the EU on the free movement of persons. In this spirit, a unique seminar took place on Friday at ETH Zurich in which these negotiations with the EU were simulated under realistic conditions. The seminar was spearheaded by the ETH Chair of Negotiation and Conflict Management, the Chair of European Law and the Europe Institute at the University of Zurich, and the think tank foraus. The academics wanted to use the simulation experiment to gain an insight into the logic applied by the participants on the negotiations. They also sought to analyse the prospects of success shown by different negotiating positions and to evaluate the reliability of the simulation as a tool in itself. In total, 24 students at ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and the University of Geneva were given the chance to influence, analyse and assess the course taken by the simulated diplomatic negotiations.

Simulation arrangements

In three parallel sets of negotiations, a delegation from Switzerland sat opposite a delegation from the EU. Each delegation consisted of a diplomacy expert and a political figure (see list of simulation participants at the end of this press release). The participating students were also allocated specific roles as assistants, arbitrators or observers of the individual delegations. The Swiss delegations entered negotiations with three different mandates, while the three EU delegations all had the same negotiating position, which focused on the EU’s key areas of concern. All negotiation participants received the confidential mandates a week in advance so that they could prepare accordingly. The negotiation teams were drawn against each other at random the day before the simulation.

The mandates

Mandates A and B foresee specific annual quotas and take into account the priority of Swiss nationals. Gainfully employed persons fall within the scope of the quota from three months for mandate A, but only after 12 months for mandate B. This difference has major consequences, since for mandate B the number of persons that would fall within the quota is estimated to be only half as large. Furthermore, the mandates regulate the number of cross-border employees in different ways. Mandate A includes the obligation to provide evidence that only a foreign citizen could be found to carry out the work in question. Mandate B, on the other hand, takes account of national priority only summarily when calculating the maximum numbers. Mandate A effectively corresponds to the proposal presented by the Federal Council on 20 June 2014.

Mandate C is a proposal developed by the ETH Zurich Chair of Negotiation and Conflict Management and differs fundamentally from the other mandates in that it contains no fixed quotas. Instead, annual quantitative limits or thresholds are defined and a safeguard clause is included in case of exceptional statistical situations. The thresholds are calculated based on objective factors such as the average of net immigration in the EU/EEA/CH area. If this threshold value is reached, migration could be limited.

Little basis for negotiation

It became apparent that the basis for negotiation was small for all the mandates and no solution seems likely to be found at policy level. The priority of Swiss nationals proved to be a major barrier to negotiations. It remains to be seen whether a pragmatic approach is possible, such as the introduction of safeguard clauses in mandate C. Over the coming weeks, the participating researchers will evaluate the experiment and find out the extent to which the simulation method is able to make general predictive statements on negotiations and their outcomes.