[joxdosba]

One of those is an island, the other is a landlocked country that would quite literally starve to death if the EU decided to stop facilitating its access to international markets.

Switzerland exists purely at the mercy of the EU, it lacks the military capabilities to fight its way out to the sea and force an alternate reality.

The day Switzerland is able to conquer the north of Italy is the day they get to meaningfully negotiate with the EU.

[mike_hearn]

Uh, that escalated fast! I really hope you're not European with threats like that.

EU tried all this bullshit with the UK too. Threatening to cut off electricity supplies and so on. The mask really fell, but in the end they didn't do it, they didn't even respect their own supposed red lines like cooperation on academic research. They meekly invited the UK back into their academic collaboration a few years later despite claiming at the time that it was a "privilege" tied to everything else by the laws of physics. So the idea an organization that weak is going to try and genocide an entire country over FoM is ridiculous.

At any rate, there's nothing about being an island that automatically stops a crazy genocidal EU trying to starve another country. If I recall history correctly, less than 100 years ago a big European country was attempting to starve Britain to death by systematically sinking its cargo convoys. Then just a few decades later east Germany was trying to starve Berlin by shutting down rail links. Note: both attempts failed.

[joxdosba]

What threats? I was simply pointing out the undeniable fact that Switzerland is utterly dependent on the benevolence of the EU.

The EU has unlimited ability to punish Switzerland with extreme precision and at a low cost, Switzerland has no meaningful ability to go tit-for-tat even at a very low level.

> At any rate, there's nothing about being an island that automatically stops a crazy genocidal EU trying to starve another country. If I recall history correctly, less than 100 years ago a big European country was attempting to starve Britain to death by systematically sinking its cargo convoys. Then just a few decades later east Germany was trying to starve Berlin by shutting down rail links. Note: both attempts failed.

Yes, you’ve succeeded at explaining why it makes a difference that Britain is an island. At the very extreme end, the EU would actually have to go to war with them instead of just issuing a NOTAM and sending a few cop cars to monitor border crossings.

Also, FWIW, at no point during Brexit has Switzerland been a better partner for the EU than the UK has.

[inglor_cz]

The EU would have to rely on German, Austrian, French and Italian cops/soldiers to actually enforce any sort of physical blockade against Switzerland.

I am not certain if all the respective governments would simply obey such an instruction if they didn't have any beef with the Swiss themselves.

Which now means that the EU has to block not just Switzerland, but (say) Austria, which means compliance from four other countries (CZ, SK, SI, HU), which is even less probable etc. etc.

Ultimately, the EU is really good at processing papers, but doesn't have the power necessary to initiate physical punishments of this sort unless the relevant member states agree.

[joxdosba]

Trade policies are very much set at an EU level.

> The EU would have to rely on German, Austrian, French and Italian cops/soldiers to actually enforce any sort of physical blockade against Switzerland

Without these treaties, there absolutely will be permanently manned border checkpoints.

None of these countries love Switzerland enough to be willing to end the EU over it.

[inglor_cz]

Manned border checkpoints are likely in that case. I don't believe in complete blockade, though.

[joxdosba]

Manned border checkpoints are inevitable in that case, it would be an external border.

But of course a blockade isn’t a realistic option, the Swiss would fold immediately if they thought things were headed in that direction. You could never get to that point.

The point is that the EU can crush Switzerland with the stroke of a pen, they couldn’t crush the UK without going to war. Switzerland could never even consider a kinetic response, so its room to manoeuvre agains its vastly bigger neighbour is limited to begging for mercy.

It’s also important to remember that nobody in the EU likes the Swiss, they are notorious troublemakers who are tolerated at best and despised at worst.