Switzerland in the EU Environment

June 16, 2003
Polish-Swiss Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Warsaw

Summary

Even though Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, it is deeply embedded within the European framework. There are still good reasons why Switzerland has remained outside of the EU. By signing the bilateral treaties, however, Switzerland has secured sectoral access to the European single market. The imminent EU eastward enlargement presents both new opportunities and new challenges for our country.

Globalisation and the liberalisation of the international financial markets have also led to some profound changes and major upheavals in the Swiss financial centre. Last year in particular will go down in history as an extremely difficult year. Given the delayed economic upswing, the financial sector will continue to be under pressure as well.

The Swiss National Bank's experience with its new monetary policy concept has been consistently positive and has enabled it to proceed with its successful monetary policy of the last ten years. Switzerland will therefore continue to enjoy price stability and above-average employment figures.

Experience gained with the European single currency so far has also been positive throughout. The initial misgivings when the euro was first introduced have all proved to be unfounded. The National Bank's room for manoeuvre has not been compromised, and it has become clear that an independent monetary policy is still viable even in a small and open economy.

The current economic situation continues to be dominated by downward risks. With the structural adjustments of the past few years Switzerland should nevertheless be well positioned to profit from the next global economic recovery.

Download file now

The file can be downloaded with the button below.

Additional files

Related content

Author(s)

  • Jean-Pierre Roth
    Chairman of the Governing Board

Your settings

Required: These cookies (e.g. for storing your IP address) cannot be rejected as they are necessary to ensure the operation of the website. These data are not evaluated further.
Analytics: If you consent to this category, data such as IP address, location, device information, browser version and site visitor behaviour will be collected. These data are evaluated for the SNB's internal purposes and are kept for two years.
Third-party: If you consent to this category, third-party services (used, for example, to add social multimedia content to the SNB's website) will be activated which collect personal data, process these data, disclose them abroad - worldwide - and place cookies. The relevant data protection regulations are linked in the 'Privacy statement for the website of the Swiss National Bank'.

Choose your preferred settings:

This website uses cookies, analytics tools and other technologies to provide requested features, content and services, to personalise the content shown, to provide links to social media, and to analyse the use of the website in anonymised form for the purposes of improving usability. Personal data are also disclosed abroad - worldwide - to video service providers and the analytics tools of these providers are used. More information is available under 'Manage settings'.