Merkel, Burkhalter discuss Swiss anti-foreigner referendum

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Swiss President Didier Burkhalter, currently on a visit to Berlin. The Swiss President is visiting several EU member state capitals following the recent referendum that will limit immigration to Switzerland, a move that has caused an uproar across the EU and could require the renegotiation of a variety of treaties with Switzerland. He is due to visit Paris later in the day to discuss Swiss voters' demand for immigration quotas. Merkel and Burkhalter stressed their countries' keenness to strengthening the bilateral relations, regardless of the outcome of the referendum. She opposed any hasty response to the recent vote, saying that she "deplored" the referendum outcome, but respected the voters' decision and did not want to "hastily wreck" Germany's good relations with Switzerland. "We'll have to see how Switzerland applies the referendum decision over the next three years and we'll be monitoring this, and at the end of the three years we'll decide what the consequences are," she said. The Chancellor dismissed calls for sanctions to be imposed now and said questions about what she would do in three years' time were "hypothetical." She said she would seek "reasonable solutions" to the Swiss quota demands. The narrow decision in a referendum held February 9 has thrown relations between non-EU member Switzerland and the 28-state bloc into crisis, since Switzerland has largely open borders. The Swiss government now has three years to implement the will of its citizens. As a first consequence, Switzerland announced at the weekend that it will not lift migration restrictions on citizens from the EU's newest member state, Croatia. That led the EU this week to put negotiations on culture, science and student-exchange programs on ice.