Relations between Switzerland and the European Union (EU) have cooled considerably: in May 2021, the Swiss Federal Council surprisingly broke off negotiations on the joint trade agreement - and thus more than irritated the EU Commission. With the agreement, customs duties were supposed to fall and wine trade was also supposed to become much easier. Markus Blaser explains the background and perspectives.
Switzerland is an important sales market for Europe's wine producers: the EU exports wine to the Swiss Confederation for more than one billion euros annually. Conversely, the import of Swiss wine into the EU is very low at barely 30 million euros per year. So the EU is definitely more interested in access to the Swiss wine market than vice versa.
