This important book offers an insightful analysis of the legal and political stakes and challenges underpinning the EU-Switzerland relations, or Switzerland-EU relations if one prefers. Its origins are to be found in a workshop, organised on 19 November 2019 at Ghent University by the Ghent European Law Institute (G.E.L.I.), in close cooperation with the Embassy of Switzerland in Belgium and the Mission of Switzerland to the European Union, on the topic ‘Switzerland and the European Union – A Strong Bilateral Partnership with Continental and Global Reach’.1 The aim was to examine the avenues and challenges of furthering European integration short of EU membership from all angles. It brought together over 200 participants consisting of officials, academic experts and students from Switzerland, the EU, and neighbouring countries, to discuss and reflect on specific issues of the bilateral relationship(s). The keynote speech was delivered by H.E. Roberto Balzaretti, then the Swiss State Secretary for European Affairs.
The Ghent Workshop provided a stimulating forum for deepening understanding and gaining new insights into the complex sectoral or bilateral approach. The focus lay on legal and political aspects including, in particular, the prospects of the conclusion of an institutional agreement between the EU and Switzerland, which was at the time presented ‘as an instrument to cement and develop this bilateral approach’. No doubt, it was one of the rare academic events on EU-Switzerland relations organised outside of Switzerland. Its success formed the basis for a broader academic reflection so that in February 2020, the editors of the present volume, Marc Maresceau and Christa Tobler, decided to launch an ambitious research initiative on EU-Switzerland relations leading to the current edited volume for the Brill Series Studies in EU External Relations (seur) with contributions by a stellar cast of experts.
Almost immediately after the initiation of the book project, the Covid pandemic broke out, so whether to continue or not with the book became an existential practical question. More importantly, as will immediately become clear when reading this book, major difficulties specifically related to the Switzerland-EU relations also emerged rather unexpectedly, which called for a
Inge Govaere
Director of the Ghent European Law Institute (G.E.L.I.)
See Press Communiqué of the Swiss Mission to the European Union, Brussels, 19 November 2019, on the Ghent Academic Workshop “Academic Workshop: Switzerland and the European Union – A Strong Bilateral Partnership with Continental and Global Reach”, <