The EU is using every tool in their passive aggressive arsenal in order to guilt Switzerland into no longer being neutral! /s

Switzerland is in some EU institutions like Schengen.

Thus EU membership has lots of asterixes and grey areas unlike the US which is a federacy the EU is a confederacy (Look at Brexit). Switzerland is somewhat unique in that it's both EU and not EU. Take the UK for instance -- their grey area is "Northern Ireland".

Switzerland and the UK aren't in the EU. The website name is abit of a misnomer.

Its not in the EU in terms of being part of all of the accords.

(In particular, free movement of people in the bloc as I understand it.)

the page is labelled "European Alternatives" not "EU Alternatives"

But its logo has the 12 gold stars of the EU flag over a blue cloud.

And it has the EU TLD.

that flag was the Flag of the Council of Europe before it was ever associated with the EU

(similar to the same way the EU has attempted to commandeer the term "Europe" to mean itself)

There is free movement between EU and Switzerland

if u want to travel sure, if u want to work u need a permit. So not a freedom of movement in the full EU way

It's almost exactly the full EU freedom of movement. In theory Swiss have to provide priority to Swiss nationals but otherwise there are no restrictions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_for_work...

EU adopted it's flag from and existing institution of which virtually all European nations as part of.

It seems like a case of appropriation until you realize that most European supranational organizations share similar origins, goals and members.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Europe

Switzerland, as others have already mentioned, is not a state of the EU, which means that GDPR rules for third party countries apply to them.

You're being confused by a nasty habit many loyalists to the EU institutions have, of conflating the EU (a political system) with Europe and Europeans (a continent and people).

A good rule of thumb is that if a British person says Europe or European they mean "the continent" and are including Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Vatican City etc, but excluding the UK itself.

If a German/French/Spanish/Italian person says Europe or European, especially if they've been to university, they a very likely to mean the EU and only the EU. These people usually don't consider Switzerland or Britain to the "European" as a consequence.

People outside of Europe always mean the continent and population, including the UK, when they use these terms.

> If a German/French/Spanish/Italian person says Europe or European, especially if they've been to university, they a very likely to mean the EU and only the EU. These people usually don't consider Switzerland or Britain to the "European" as a consequence.

German, been to university. Same for my whole social system. That's absolutely BS what you're saying. Especially German speaking countries have a stronger bond than EU/Europe because of "DACH" and a shared culture (see the anthroposophy discussion recently).

This thread is literally an example of it: the title claims to be "European alternatives" but the author really means the EU. No British firms are listed.