Partners in trade: despite a defiant refusal to join the EU, Switzerland is nevertheless irrefutably dependant on the greater European economy, the source of a third of Swiss revenues. Were something to go awry in the carefully maintained relationship with the EU, the Swiss would surely pay a price.

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BUSINESS

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Partners in trade: despite a defiant refusal to join the EU, Switzerland is nevertheless irrefutably dependant on the greater European economy, the source of a third of Swiss revenues. Were something to go awry in the carefully maintained relationship with the EU, the Swiss would surely pay a price.

The European Union is by far Switzerland's biggest trading partner--a market of 450 million people buying about 60 per cent of our exports and providing 85 per cent of our imports. Europe also makes direct capital investments of about SFr 110 billion here.

Currently these lucrative trade relations are governed by two sets of bilateral agreements signed in June 1999 and October 2004. The agreements set guidelines ranging from approval of new technologies to taxation to political issues--asylum, cooperative efforts against crime and the free movement of people, known as Schengen...

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