📋 Tender Overview
The Foreign Policy Committee of the Council of States (CPE-E) has completed its review of Bilateral III. In the general vote, it adopted the federal decree approving and implementing the agreements relating to the stabilization of relations between Switzerland and the EU by 9 votes to 3 and 1 abstention. She supports the immigration tax proposed by the CIP-E as part of the safeguard clause with regard to the free movement of people.
ContentAt its meeting on September 3 and 4, 2026, the CPE-E completed the preliminary examination of the stabilization part of the Switzerland-EU package (Bilateral III) 26.023. The federal decree approving and implementing the agreements relating to the stabilization of relations between Switzerland and the EU constitutes the central core of this part (federal decree 1). In the vote on the whole, the committee adopted this federal decree by 9 votes to 3 and 1 abstention. It thus approves the agreements and authorizes the Federal Council to ratify them. At the same time, it approved the implementing legislation with occasional modifications. At the end of its overall assessment, a clear majority of the committee supports the stabilization of relations between Switzerland and the EU. All the commissions that participated in the preliminary examination of the stabilization part have completed their work. This part of the package is therefore ready to be examined by the Council of States during the fall session. New agreements to develop relations between Switzerland and the EU in the areas of food safety and health are also ready for consideration by the Council of States. The electricity agreement will likely be examined by the Council of States during the winter session. The deliberations of the CPE-E took place over several sessions. At its meeting of March 26, 2026, the CPE-E carried out in-depth hearings then, at its meeting of April 16 and 17, 2026, it decided to address the stabilization part of Federal Decree 1. Then, on May 21 and 22, 2026, it sent co-reports to the CIP-E concerning the question of the referendum (decree 1, art. 3, para. 1) and the free movement of persons (Federal Decree 1, Annex 4), as well as to the Commission for Economic Affairs and Taxes of the Council of States (CER-E) regarding the supervision of state aid (Federal Decree 1, Annex 1). At its last meeting on August 13 and 14, 2026, the committee completed the discussion by article of the Cohesion Contributions Act (Federal Decree 1, Annex 3) and the related commitment appropriations (Federal Decrees 6 to 8), the participation of Parliament (Federal Decree 1, Annex 6) and parliamentary cooperation (Federal Decree 5). It also sent the CER-E another co-report concerning the protection of wages (federal decree 1, annex 5). During its meeting on September 3 and 4, 2026, before carrying out the overall evaluation of the result of the preliminary examination as part of the vote on the whole, the CPE-E took a position on the CIP-E proposal aimed at introducing an incentive tax in the field of immigration. The committee voted in favor of the CIP-E proposal by 5 votes to 3 with 5 abstentions.
