Parliament wants to secure Switzerland’s connection to the European network
Published: Tuesday, Jun 11th 2024, 11:30
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If the negotiations for an electricity agreement between the European Union and Switzerland fail, Switzerland should still be integrated into the European electricity grid. This is what the Swiss parliament wants to achieve.
On Tuesday, the National Council adopted two motions submitted by the Center Party with this objective by clear majorities. They will now go to the national government for implementation. The Council of States had already approved them in March.
The Federal Council has thus been instructed to base Switzerland's contribution to the functioning of the European electricity system "on a foundation of legal certainty. If no political agreement is reached, technical agreements should be sought with the European Union (EU) and/or the affected member states and grid operators".
According to the second motion, the Federal Council should work towards ensuring that the national grid company Swissgrid concludes technical agreements with the transmission system operators of other countries. This will be the case as long as there is no electricity agreement with the EU. The two motions are therefore intended to offer an alternative should the conclusion of an agreement fail.
At the end of March this year, the Federal Council announced its intention to conclude an electricity agreement with the EU. The motions were submitted much earlier. Minorities with different compositions rejected the two motions.
Their spokespersons said that Switzerland's exit from nuclear energy was ultimately the reason for the negotiations with the EU on electricity. It was also said that the two motions contradicted each other. The Federal Council rejected both motions as unnecessary and outdated respectively.
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