Sorry for the radio silence these last 10 days. I was in Switzerland for work (and some fun). It was my first time there for an extended period and proved to be one of the more interesting experiences I've had abroad. I am by no means an expert on Switzerland, but here are some thoughts from an outsider's perspective. I think you might find them interesting.

What the European Monetary Union Seeks to Become?

What makes Switzerland so interesting (for an economics nerd like me) is its centrality to Europe combined with its relative neutrality to the European Union. Switzerland maintains its own currency (the Swiss Franc) and monetary sovereignty with a central bank that it controls. Switzerland is a Federation of 26 state-like entities called Cantons with local governments within the Cantons. It is, in very simple terms, kind of like a miniature version of the USA with a federal government and 26 states that are independent but united. Unlike the USA, however, it is a true democracy in that the people can vote for policy changes with simple majorities.¹

I've compared the EU (and the EMU more specifically) to a version of the USA. The USA works specifically because of its fiscal and political unity. The EMU doesn't work because it has loose political unity and weak monetary unity. Switzerland is basically a very small USA. They have political and monetary unity. So, in a sense, the EMU seeks to become more like the USA, but Switzerland is arguably the better example as they've already integrated several different cultures (with the 4 regions of Switzerland have strong cultural and lingual influences from the surrounding regions) within a politically and monetarily unified country.

So, in an interesting way, Switzerland's rejection of the EU project is especially harsh as they're a pretty good example for what the EU would like to be.

Switzerland's Decentralized Economy. 

Decentralization is definitely a buzzword around all of Switzerland. Everyone I talked to was very proud of the fact that Switzerland is decentralized from the rest of the EU. And you see this all over the place – they even accept Bitcoin as a form of payment all over the place!