[vidarh]

Switzerland isn't in the EEA either as they rejected EEA membership in a vote in '92.

Instead they have a weird patchwork of bilateral treaties that are designed to look pretty much like EEA membership if you squint just right, and look like just bilateral treaties in separate areas if you squint a bit differently. They're linked, and at least the first seven have a "guillotine clause" so they all cease to apply if one of them is canceled, so in practice Switzerland is practically like an EEA member, but they get to pretend it's all very different.

There are some clear differences, though, and there have been years of negotiations trying to reduce them without success.

[Longhanks]

I don't know what point you are trying to make with your snark, but bilateral treaties are much easier to alter or cancel if one party so desires, and public opinion in Switzerland is that they were definitely the right choice and the way to go forward. They are actively being negotiated.

[vidarh]

The point is that it was constructed largely as a convenient a fiction intended to mollify the Swiss electorate after they voted no to the EEA, as the bulk of the "separate" bilateral treaties can't be separated, altered or cancelled without all of them being canceled by the guillotine clause, as Switzerland has already found out once, so there is no difference in the difficulty of cancellations, for example - you cancel one thing, and everything unravels in either case.

They are actively being negotiated because both Switzerland and the EU have realised there's a need to reform the original treaties, and the EU for a decade now have insisted that anything replacing them need to be closer to the EEA agreement, while having made clear they're not doing this crazy thing again for anyone else.

[Longhanks]

Well, judging by how incredibly many EU citizens emigrate to Switzerland, which is directly caused by the bilateral treaties, there's certainly interest from both parties to negotiate. Switzerland also pays raw cash to the EU as part of the deal.

I'm not sure how long the EU can afford to further alienate countries that pay net positive into it's wallet, after losing the UK and the continuing rise of euroscepticism.

[vidarh]

The current round of negotiations were directly triggered by Switzerland trying to restrict freedom of movement and realizing they couldn't do that without cancelling all the treaties.

The EU can afford to stick to its guns in this indefinitely. It's made it clear for a decade that any change to the treaties with Switzerland can contain minor concessions, but only in return for a bet reduction in the deviations from the EEA framework.

With respect to euro scepticism, that largely fell apart thanks to Brexit - most of the parties arguing for the same for their countries have moderated their stances significantly, and support for the EU increased massively. Including in the UK where Brexit is widely seen as a massive mistake, and it's more a question of electoral calculus (neither of the big parties can afford to alienate the Brexit diehards yet; they're spread across the political labdscape) than anything else when rejoining gets in the political agenda.

[vidarh]

"big reduction", not "bet reduction"...

As an addition re: the reduction in euroscepticism, according to Pew Research, between 2016 and 2019, the proportion of people with a favorable view of the EU rose 26 percentage points in Greece, 19 in Germany, 19 in Spain, 18 in Sweden 15 in the Netherlands, 13 in France, 12 in Poland, 10 *in the UK, 6 in Hungary. In 2022, a EU parliament survey showed overall support for the EU across member states was at a 15 year high, also much thanks to the Brexit bounce. In 2023, the European Parliament Eurobarameter - Autumn 2023 survey showed 72% of EU citizens think that their country has benefited from being a member of the EU, and only 22% thinks it has not.

[Scarblac]

And opinion in the EU is that it was a mistake they never want to make again. Far too complicated to negotiate 100 or do separate treaties.