from Bill Still
lass=”” >Good evening, I’m still reporting on the demise of the European Union.
Switzerland has withdrawn its application for admittance into the European Union. The Swiss Council of States, Switzerland’s upper house, voted 27 to 13 to withdraw its application.
This followed a similarly overwhelming rejection by the lower house in March by a 126 to 46 vote.
The Swiss have never been enthralled with the EU concept. Their first rejection came 24 years ago in 1992 when a referendum of the citizens turned back an application to join the European Economic Area.
Damian Mueller of the Free Democratic Party said the votes in the Swiss Parliament were necessary to settle the issue once and for all:
“[We had] to make a clean sweep.”
The Swiss vote followed last year’s decision by Iceland to drop its own application to the European Union. Hannes Germann of the Swiss People’s Party noted:
“Iceland had the courage to withdrew their application for membership and no volcano erupted.”
Christoph Blocher, the former Swiss member of Parliament who led the charge to keep Switzerland out of the EU in 1992 remembered that there were predictions of doom and gloom for the Swiss nation at that time if they did not enter the EU.
However, those predictions did not materialize. Today, Switzerland is one of the richest nations in the world with a GDP per capita that is twice that of the UK.
Bloucher says that the Brits should not listen to the Project Fear folks in the UK:
“I think if you leave the EU it will be very good for you.”
Since the assassination of British MP, Jo Cox, on Thursday, European stock markets had quickly reversed a days-long slide as polling in Britain has been strongly moving in the direction of Brexit – Britain’s exit from the EU.
The thinking was that since Mrs. Cox was a highly respected opponent of Brexit, that a sympathy vote would emerge.
However, the latest polling of 1,992 British adults shows that although supporters of Brexit remain at 52%, support for remaining has dropped from 40% to 32%, and the undecided jumped from 9% up to 16% – definitely not a good sign for the EU.
Translation: the Swiss vote may have been the final nail in the coffin of British membership in the European Union and after a British rejection, several other European nations are contemplating leaving as well.
I’m still reporting from Washington. Good day.