Swiss Migration partnerships in the EU context

Like other countries in Europe, Switzerland has re-designed its agreements on migration andhas created a new framework agreement. Switzerland’s migration partnership agreements were conceived as a new steering tool for migration. Border security, visa relaxation, readmission and development aid are combined within a single package agreement. The framework for concluding these partnerships with migrant source or transit countries is Article 100 of the Swiss Alien Act of 2008. Beyond this legal basis, there is no official strategy to fill the concept with content or direction, even if the conditionality between illegal migration and development aid has been loosened. By comparing Switzerland’s migration partnerships to their quasi-mirror image at the regional level, the EU mobility partnerships this PhD will identify, de lege ferenda, the key elements of such partnerships. Overall this study complements the investigations in this work package on the emerging treaty law of economic migration. In particular, the PhD evaluates the legal basis for such partnership in Swiss constitutional and migration law against tendencies towards “informalisation” of treaty-making powers, the whole-of-government approach and the principle of shared responsibility. A second focus will be on labour market access, which Swiss migration partnerships are as yet precluded from liberalising. How should temporary labour mobility be preferentially liberalised without infringing the most-favoured-nation clause of GATS or the priority for EU/EFTA citizens under the bilateral EU–Swiss agreement on the free movement of persons?