«Agreements with the EU would spell the end of the Swiss model»5 reading minutes

François Schaller rejects the idea of Switzerland drawing closer to the European Union in the face of US tariffs. According to the editorialist, the agreements signed in 2024 are not about trade but about subordination, and threaten the Confederation's political and economic autonomy.

Former editor-in-chief of L'Agefi and PME Magazine, and member of the Autonomiesuisse committee, François Schaller is one of the leading voices in French-speaking Switzerland critical of the institutional rapprochement between Switzerland and the European Union (EU). According to the editorialist, the agreements on which the Swiss people will be voting over the next few years have nothing to do with trade. They would place Switzerland under a European legal umbrella, without increasing its exports. Rather than give in to this logic, the journalist, who describes himself as a «pragmatic liberal», defends another path: that of assured multilateralism.