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> Switzerland is largely free to make its own legislation That's a charming idea, but not really a very accurate one. Switzerland is under perpetual pressure t
by microtherion 7y ago
> Switzerland is largely free to make its own legislation
That's a charming idea, but not really a very accurate one. Switzerland is under perpetual pressure to harmonize legislation with partners both close by (EU) and distant (US).
Sure, we are free to make our own legislation, but at some point, those partners would also exercise their freedom not to deal with us under favored terms anymore, and, particularly with the EU, Switzerland tends to eventually adopt a large part of EU legislation.
- pingyong 7y agoIn this specific case though, what are they gonna do? Stop selling media in Switzerland?
- xiphias2 7y agoThey can always do economic sanctions. Just look at what happened to GBP after the Brexit vote.
- CaptainZapp 7y agoThat has nothing to do with economic sanctions, though. That's related to the fact that the markets believe that the UK boarded a train loaded with nitroglicerine, going downhill with failing brakes.
- reallydontask 7y agowhat economic sanctions? I haven't heard of any
- xiphias2 7y agoAFAIK EU wants closed borders and a different financial center if UK leaves EU. Both of these can have the effect of hurting the UK economy.
- pjc50 7y agoIt's the UK which is insisting on closed borders, specifically exit from the customs union and ending freedom of movement. The EU is just promising to reciprocate. Brexit is the UK imposing sanctions on itself. You can watch the GBP tick up or down according to how likely it looks to actually happen on any given day based on stupid statements by the PM.
- xiphias2 7y agoSure, what I was saying is that Switzerland could have distanced itself from US and EU, and it would probably have had a similar effect on the Swiss economy (and the CHF). Without outside money Switzerland would be in a much worse situation.
- CHsurfer 7y agoMany in Switzerland would be happy if the CHF lost value. Of course, that's only true if we can somehow maintain the same level of trading rights.
- onion2k 7y agoThe EU wants the financial centre of the EU to be in the EU. That does make sense.
- me_me_me 7y ago> AFAIK EU wants closed borders What? That is exactly the opposite of reality. Its the UK that want hard Brexit.
- Maken 7y agoIf by different financial center you mean a lot of banks leaving the UK, that is more a side effect of the UK leaving the custom union than a restriction from the EU. Banks don't like being unable to move their money.
- gpvos 7y agoNo sanctions were involved for that, just the market losing faith in a currency.
- pingyong 7y agoSomehow I doubt countries are going to start sanctioning Switzerland because they don't play ball on copyright regulations.
- CHsurfer 7y agoOne of the problems is that much content is not available via legal means in Switzerland because the media companies have not got around to it, so many will use torrents as it's the only way to get the content. If they completely block legal access to content, then torrenting will only increase.
- pingyong 7y agoYeah that was exactly my point. Here in Germany tons of people pirate things that aren't available too. Like if something is on US Netflix but not available here, well people are gonna pirate it. If 10 seasons of a show are available on Amazon Prime but Seasons 11-13 are only available on US Amazon Prime or some other US cable network, people are gonna pirate it. It's not really a surprise and leaving that market entirely is just gonna result in more people pirating.
- bschmitt 7y agoOne really annoying aspect of streaming services in Switzerland is that, even when some content is available via legal means, say Netflix, you often have the problem with subtitles. I often run into content that have subtitles only in German or only in French.
- xwolfi 7y agoThat's the raw definition of freedom: your freedom stops where the freedom of others starts. You're free to give passports to war criminals to flee to Argentina, we're free to require Credit Suisse to give us their list of european clients if they want to operate in european markets. Everyone is free in the best of worlds, long live free Switzerland.
- Kenji 7y agoNo, that is now how freedom works. What you're saying is that if there is a schoolyard bully who doesn't beat you up if you give him your sandwich every break, then you are free because you can choose whether you wanna keep your sandwich or be beaten up. Obviously that's nonsense. The pressure from other countries is obvious bullying and power play and an attack on sovereignty, especially what the EU is doing.
- afiori 7y ago> That's the raw definition of freedom: your freedom stops where the freedom of others starts. This does not really apply here; the meaning here applies to freedom as a right from an authority (being this a state or an abstract morality). The freedom Switzerland has is not constrained from that[1] but it is constrained by the responsibility they have towards their own population. [1] Ok, above the state of Switzerland there is the Swiss population. But that does not really have an impact here.