Text tabled : B7-0248/2012

  Vilja Savisaar-Toomast (ALDE), in writing. – (ET) In today’s vote, I supported the adoption of the resolution on Swiss quotas on the number of residence permits granted to citizens of Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. It is regrettable that Switzerland is once again not fulfilling its obligations, and wishes to participate in the European Union internal market only on the basis of rules that it finds suitable, and without fulfilling its own obligations. Surprisingly, all eight of these countries are Eastern European countries that acceded to the EU in 2004, and such discriminatory behaviour has no justification whatsoever. All of these countries have fulfilled the obligations they undertook in 2004 in the EU and under the Schengen visa system, and have thus earned equal treatment. I hope that the European Union and its institutions will not renege on the promises made to these countries and their citizens, and that their rights will also be guaranteed in Switzerland.