Thank you.
First of all, how is it initiated in Switzerland? Consultation with the industry is very close. I mean, nothing is made in cabinet only. From the very beginning, representatives of the industry often have brainstorming meetings with the unit of the government, preparing the strategy for a free trade agreement. We are basically at the service of the industry and are not imposing some bureaucratic plan on the industry.
The federal state is quite weak in Switzerland. We are a provider of services. Most things are done at the provincial level, but foreign economic policy is clearly a federal competence.
We work with the industry simply because if we have an agreement that goes against significant interests in the country, those interests would trigger a referendum and it would be challenged on a popular vote. They have more money than the state, and they would win the vote. We would have lost four years. We as a government have an built-in interest from the start to take our partners from the industry on board and to take the provinces on board. Those are often the most difficult negotiations. Once we have a position, then we stick to it.
Why do we need free trade agreements? As I said before, the ideal world would be the when the World Trade Organization and the Doha Round are actually working. It's not happening now.
In the meantime, you have to be present worldwide. As for Switzerland, if you are not ready to conclude free trade agreements openly, with as many partners as possible, others will conclude these agreements, resulting in the creation of a preferential zone where our industry will be discriminated against. Our mission here as a state is to watch, anywhere in the world where we can, that our industry has the best possible access.
Then again, how do we want these free trade agreements? We want them to be comprehensive, as I said before in my presentation, not only for exchanges of goods but for services and horizontal issues, competition, fiscality, and droit des sociétés, as pluridimensional as possible, with the problem always being agriculture because that's something special.
I take the case we have now in the negotiations with Canada. Canada actually wanted a free trade agreement with EFTA, the European Free Trade Association, which Switzerland is a part of. They initiated the negotiation in 1998. It was almost concluded, and it was blocked because of one chapter. Shipbuilding was a very big issue in the Maritimes. It was not an issue at all for Switzerland, of course. But here, we have to be loyal to our EFTA partner. It's an industry in Norway that was perceived as being threatening for some industries in the Maritimes.
This chapter only blocked the negotiation for four years. Luckily, we have been back on track since this autumn and negotiations have started again. We are really close to succeeding, and we hope we can finally yield results with Canada in the coming months.
But here again, you see that agriculture is creeping in. Canada is now trying to bring an agricultural dimension to this mostly industrial free trade agreement, and that's fair enough. As long as it's maple syrup, horse meat, and blueberries, we have no problem. But if Canada comes to us with sugar beets or potatoes, it will be a problem for Norway and Switzerland. We are willing to have some agricultural aspect in this agreement where it does not challenge our agriculture at all.