Yves Zumwald: “The electricity agreement must be an absolute priority”

The electricity agreement with the EU is a sea serpent of Switzerland’s European policy. We have been talking regarding it since 2007, without ever having been able to achieve any concrete result. On a technical level, the Swiss and European negotiators met for the last time in July 2018. This was shortly before the political summit meeting between European Commissioner Johannes Hahn and Ignazio Cassis, who however did not manage to agree on an institutional framework agreement, a sine qua non condition in the eyes of Brussels. Today, however, this agreement on electricity is becoming topical once more at a time when the war in Ukraine has aroused serious fears in terms of energy supply. By stabilizing the Swiss market, it might be a major asset in the event of a vote on a future framework agreement. The weather spoke with Yves Zumwald, managing director of the national electricity transmission operator Swissgrid.