Recent

As a prelude to full EU membership Switzerland joined the EEA (European Economic Area), yet the government's strategy lay in ruins after citizens rejected the EEA in a referendum in December 1992. Switzerland's EU application has consequently been put on ice; in the meantime the government has been laying groundwork for closer integration with the rest of Europe. In 1998 the Swiss government agreed to pay CHF1200000000 compensation to relatives of Holocaust victims whose funds were deposited in Swiss banks.
In 2002 Switzerland became a member of the United Nations (despite the UN being founded and headquartered in Geneva for aeons), and a year later an enormous milestone was reached with a referendum backing the EU's Schengen and Dublin agreements, thus making Switzerland part of the EU's passport-free zone and pushing Switzerland closer to the EU in matters of crime and asylum. Months later, another referendum gave the OK to eastern European workers seeking work in Switzerland as the country opened its job-market doors to 10 of the newest EU member countries.