Switzerland nixes deal with Croatia on free labour access

(MENAFN- AFP) Switzerland has declined to sign a deal opening labour market access to Croatians, a week after a vote to curb immigration from the EU, the justice ministry said Saturday.Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga called Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic to inform her that Bern would not be able to sign a bilateral accord extending the right of free access to Switzerland for EU citizens to the bloc's newest member state "in its current form," a ministry spokesman said.Sommaruga had also informed Brussels that the deal would need to be reexamined, spokesman Philippe Schwander told AFP, adding that the minister had stressed she was seeking a "solution" to ensure Croatians were not discriminated against.The move came after the Swiss voters last Sunday narrowly approved curbing immigration from the European Union, with 50.3 percent of voters deciding to void a pact giving equal footing to EU citizens in the Swiss labour market.Switzerland is not a member of the EU, but counts the bloc as its main trading partner.Croatia, which only joined the EU in July last year, had reached an agreement with Switzerland a month later that would have allowed its citizens free access to work places in the wealthy Alpine nation within a decade.But the February 9 referendum has created a "new constitutional disposition ... (and) Switzerland cannot sign the accord in its current form," Schwander explained.