In Brussels, there was shock and anger. In Switzerland, quiet celebrations and relief-but for some people, what exactly is the next step raises questions.

On Wednesday, Berne announced the official Withdraw from negotiations In order to codify the future relations with the EU into a single overall “framework agreement”-round-trip transactions have dominated the increasingly tense relations with Brussels since 2014.

Philip Erzinger, head of the anti-framework agreement movement organization Kompass Europe, said: “You will never sign a contract like the business world.” “This is unilateral. It requires us to adopt EU law, and There is no mechanism to say no. This will directly interfere with our direct democracy and cantonal system in Switzerland.”

For opponents of the process, the present is Similar to the British referendum Ended its group member-Swexit.

There are similarities. Switzerland has never participated in the European Union and rejected membership in the European Economic Area in a referendum in 1992.

However, through 120 bilateral agreements, it has almost full access to the EU’s internal market and is a member of its passport-free travel zone. It also maintains close ties with the surrounding groups on many economic and legal matters.

Even so, if there is no framework agreement, the EU will not update or upgrade bilateral arrangements when it changes its own rules. As a result, the Swiss will gradually lose access opportunities, bringing uncertainty to businesses and residents.

Switzerland is the EU’s fourth largest trading partner. There are more than 1.4 million EU and British nationals living in Switzerland. According to customs authorities, an estimated 330,000 people cross the Swiss land border every day.

The decision is the highest victory of the Swiss right-wing populist Swiss People’s Party, which has long opposed Switzerland’s surrender to Brussels.

However, unlike the situation in the UK on June 27 five years ago, to a large extent, there was almost no political earthquake in Switzerland on Thursday morning.

“To be honest, I haven’t realized the direct consequences of our business,” said Hugo Roppel, CEO of Geneva Logistics Group, a transporter in Geneva, Switzerland. “The most rational statement is that we need Europe, and Europe needs Switzerland… I think everyone needs to take some time to calm down before negotiations can start again.”

Martin Janssen, chief executive of Ecofin, a Swiss financial software company in Zurich, said Switzerland must be “allowed to be different.” He said that the framework agreement does not provide for this.

After seven years of diplomatic setbacks, many Swiss are just happy for the opportunity to move on.

The country’s largest newspaper provided moderate support for the Federal Council’s move. “Despite sympathy [one might have] In order to overcome the narrow borders that led to many wars in Europe, there is no need to sign everything Brussels wants. “The left-leaning blockbuster newspaper Tages-Anzeiger wrote in an editorial.

Lukas Golder, chairman of GFS Bern, Switzerland’s main polling agency, said that this attitude may be typical of most Swiss people.

He said that the close relationship with the EU has been widely supported, but it is believed that this approach has been abandoned. Many Swiss are also optimistic that Brussels will negotiate Bern’s Plan B (known as the “bilateral track”), through which existing agreements can be rolled over one by one.

People think that the status of Switzerland and the EU is too weak. But expectations for alternatives may also be too high. “Gold said.

Elsinger, an opponent of the framework agreement, said that the EU will eventually return to the negotiating table. He said that at the same time, Switzerland will have to go through a “freeze period, when you feel the cold from Brussels.” However, unlike Brexit, it can rely on “existing agreements, let us breathe and not panic.”

The diplomat warned that this optimism was misplaced. The overall intention of the EU in seeking a single “framework agreement” with Switzerland is to limit the country’s privileges as much as possible, or to seek concessions to maintain these privileges.

With the entry into force of the guillotine clause, certain key agreements are already in danger of impending collapse. The Swiss Federal Council said in a statement on Thursday that it has begun to take preventive measures, such as storing medical equipment, which shows how serious it may be.

Avenir Suisse, a pro-EU think tank in Zurich, computational If the agreement between Switzerland and the EU on medical equipment, industrial machinery, chemicals and pharmaceuticals fails, it will cost Swiss companies in these sectors a one-time cost of 1.7 billion Swiss francs (US$1.9 billion) and 13 per year. A recurring cost of 100 million Swiss francs.

Teresa Hug Alonso, a researcher at Avenir Suisse, said that the Federal Council, which operates by consensus, failed to show the Swiss people the potential drawbacks of going beyond the framework agreement.

She said that it has concluded negotiations due to party politics rather than lack of public support. However, recent surveys show that in the case of a referendum on the framework agreement, 60% of the support will be passed.

The SVP is the only party to openly oppose the EU, but others are at best ambiguous about Europe. For example, the Social Democrats strongly opposed measures that would erode the wage protection of Swiss workers, and this issue has become a red line.

Switzerland now faces the prospect of a gradual deterioration in economic relations with the European Union. Hug Alonso admits, but this is not a disaster for one of the richest countries in the world.

“We are not talking about huge changes. This is an erosion. That is a problem. New negotiations with the EU in Switzerland will not generate momentum.”