Swiss ”coldness”

Past fall the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in "recognition of 60 years of progress in the area of peace, reconciliation between peoples, democracy and human rights in Europe". Herman Van Rompuy (BE) President of the European Council, highlighted that Europe today "is the most powerful engine of peace that was ever created".Seen from Switzerland, a small country with 8 million inhabitants in the centre of Europe, the EU is no longer as attractive. Since December 12 2008 when the Swiss population approved the freedom of circulation of individuals, Switzerland is part of the Schengen area. On February 8 2009, 59.6% of voters decided to extend the agreement beyond 2009, to include also Bulgaria and Romania. The attempt to promote such adhesion today would risk being rejected by popular vote. Eurosceptics’ success lies in disillusion. In fact, those who oppose free circulation dismiss Schengen as a "disaster", echoed by right-wing "Central Democratic Union (CDU)", whose propaganda denounces "increasing numbers of illegal migrants and criminal tourists on Swiss land". Glued to its own difficulties, owing to the crisis in eurozone countries and to the near failure of countries like Greece, Portugal, and Spain, seen from the perspective of Swiss Germany and the Italian-speaking Ticino canton, the EU is viewed as a defeat. Thus convinced Europeanists are keeping a low profile.Twenty years after the refusal to join the European Economic Space (EES), sanctioned with popular voting, an unprecedented number of Swiss people determinedly reaffirmed their opposition – i.e. 57.8%, according to a survey carried out by the Isopublic Institute past November. Swiss French generally hold more favorable positions compared to Swiss Germans. As relates to EU integration, figures are self-explanatory: between the years 1993 and 1997 a third of all the Swiss conveyed their yes vote. At the end of 2012 a consensus barely reached 11.5%, compared to 81.7% of no-votes (6.8% blank voting slips). Tensions among EU member states are caused by a set of reasons that include the threat of the euro’s collapse and the pressures to cut welfare spending, aid for development funds and participation in peace-keeping initiatives. Once again, the Swiss are unwilling because the EU under many aspects seems the shadow of the Community that led Europe to exit the wars. Nonetheless, Switzerland was never as cold on the international plane. It should be remembered that in 1901 a Swiss citizens, Henry Dunant, was awarded the Noble Prize for Peace in recognition of the establishment of the International Red Cross and the first Geneva Convention. The first world European integration chair was set up in 1957 by the University of Losanne, entrusted to professor Henri Rieben, who held the post until his retirement in 1991. Also in Lausanne, in the very heart of the university campus, Jean Monnet, a founding father of the European Community, created in 1978 the "Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe" (www.jean-monnet.ch), a place for memory, research, reflection and encounter. The Swiss forget that the EU, occasionally vilified for its tendency to overlook the values and the spirit that inspired the founding fathers, has enabled the continent to overcome national antagonisms that sparked off Two World Wars with dramatic death tolls. The EU is the world’s largest donor of humanitarian and development aid. It is active on the international scene in the fight against climate change, even though it could be blamed for not yet having developed a common defense policy, as testified by the French military intervention against Islamic terrorism in Mali."Go on, go on, there is no other future for the peoples of Europe than the EU" incited Jean Monnet. But to think of Europe as a united economic space "to better face US or Asian competition is an outdated concept. This motivation is no longer valid", wrote Czech dissident writer and politician Vaclav Havel. Europe must cherish her spiritual tradition. "Europe will discover the existence of the Other – both in the space that surrounds it, and at the four corners of the world – to fulfill this fundamental responsibility, and shall no longer lift up her eyes with the arrogance of a conqueror, but on the contrary, with the face of someone who humbly takes the cross of the world on his shoulders".(*) former editor-in-chief of the International Catholic Press Agency (APIC), former vice-president of the International Catholic Union of the Press (UCIP)