The European Financial Area and Switzerland

Abstract

If European countries were measured by the intensity of their economic relations with other European countries, Switzerland would have a good chance of being at the top of the list of honours. With approximately 6.5 million inhabitants it is one of the EC’s important customers — along with the US with 200 million — inhabitants. For its part the EC is Switzerland’s number one commercial partner, far ahead of the US and Japan as regards the import and export of both goods and capital. Traditionally too, the deficit in the Swiss balance of trade is more than compensated for by the excess produced in the balance of capital. Furthermore, of all the European countries Switzerland is the one with the most important financial connections with the EC. Swiss Banks have placed more than 100 billion Ecus with banks in the EC — that is about 20 per cent of their total assets and 50 per cent of their total of funds abroad — as well as more than 100 billion Ecus on a fiduciary basis on behalf of their customers (being 90 per cent of their overall fiduciary deposits).