The Central European country, which is not a member of the EU, is said to be losing grip as international bodies including the EU, UN, G20 and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development make more and more decisions, according to Swiss Radio and Television. The study ”Policy Agenda Setting” found that between 1987 to 1996, 7.4 percent of all political decision-making processes in Switzerland, which has always resisted the temptation to join the EU, were initiated by international actors.
This is compared to the period between 2007 and 2015, when it was already at 21.4 percent.
Meanwhile, 83 percent of all decision-making processes prompted by international actors were about the creation of new laws in Switzerland.
Most recently, the guidelines of the OECD and the G20 countries forced a relaxation of Swiss banking secrecy, while new laws and regulations for agriculture are also particularly influential.
Pascal Sciarini, from the University of Geneva who is one of the three authors of the study, said: “We do lose a little bit of control over the rules that we want to develop for ourselves. Formally, we are still independent.
“But in reality, Switzerland is becoming more and more dependent on what is decided internationally and supranationally.”
The numbers of the study are also likely to be used in the Swiss election campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections in October 2019.
The Swiss People’s Party president Albert Rösti said that “long ago that well over fifty percent of the regulations are simply taken over”.
SP leader Roger Nordmann demanded his nation to ”become more active internationally”.
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The referendum took place after years of debate in Switzerland over the country’s sovereignty.
Those in support of the change insisted that Switzerland’s sovereignty was being weakened by international agreements.
They argued that the nation’s tradition of direct democracy, which sees its citizens take part in referendums, was under threat.
The results come as the EU and Switzerland remain at loggerheads over a bilateral treaty, with Brussels threatening action against Bern and refusing to reopen negotiations.
Bern has been accused of “foot-dragging” by an increasingly confrontational Brussels after the Swiss Government asked the bloc to “clarify” three areas of the deal.
Brussels has perceived the request as a demand to reopen the draft treaty concluded in November 2018 – something the European Union has refused to do.
And in what looks like a decisive step towards a confrontation with Switzerland, the European Commission ignored a deadline to propose extending the equivalence regime that lets EU investors trade on Swiss bourses – effectively ending it as of July 1, an EU diplomat revealed.
Additional reporting by Monika Pallenberg