In a referendum held on 9 February 2014 Switzerland voted to reintroduce immigration quotas for citizens of EU Member States. As many as 50.3% of Swiss voters backed that demand, and the initiative has thus been approved, as it was supported by more than half of the Swiss cantons, the proportion required by the rules.

Although Switzerland is not a Member State, it does have ties with the EU under a number of bilateral agreements, including the Agreement on the free movement of persons, whereby Switzerland has undertaken to open up its market to working residents of EU Member States.

Given that what is involved here is a violation of one of the core principles on which the EU is built, namely free movement of persons, and that the Swiss referendum result is not conducive to labour mobility, and hence amounts to a direct breach of the agreements signed between the EU and Switzerland, how does the Commission propose to respond?