At its weekly meeting on 25 September, the Swiss Federal Council confirmed that the 10th summit of the European Political Community (EPC) will take place at *The Circle* convention complex adjacent to Zurich Airport in April 2027. The decision, announced via a Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) communiqué, sets in motion a two-year planning cycle that is expected to involve thousands of delegates, journalists and security personnel from more than 50 countries. Switzerland’s previous experience in hosting large-scale diplomatic events—including the 2021 Biden-Putin meeting in Geneva—played a decisive role in the venue selection. Locating the summit on airport property allows arrivals to proceed directly from aircraft to secure perimeter, minimising the impact on Zurich’s city centre and regular passenger traffic. Nevertheless, the Federal Office of Police (fedpol) has already indicated that temporary Schengen border-control reintroductions and restricted airspace zones will likely be enacted. From a global-mobility perspective, the summit’s significance is three-fold. First, hotel and serviced-apartment inventory in the Greater Zurich Area will tighten markedly in the weeks surrounding the conference, and corporate travel buyers are advised to lock in allocations early. Second, the expected deployment of the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES)—fully operational since April 2026—means non-EU visitors will undergo biometric registration at external Schengen frontiers, including passengers arriving specifically for the EPC. Finally, airlines operating at Zurich (ZRH) may face slot constraints on peak arrival days as VIP flights receive priority. The Federal Council has tasked the inter-departmental Steering Committee for Major International Conferences (KOMIS) with drawing up a detailed mobility and security concept by February 2027. Early proposals include using dedicated SBB shuttle trains to ferry delegations from the official summit hotels near Lake Zurich directly to the airport complex, thereby reducing road congestion on the A51 motorway. Businesses with large expatriate populations in Switzerland should anticipate heightened identity-check frequency at regional borders and prepare employee-communication plans. Event organisers will publish an initial traffic-management map six months before the summit, after which work-permit holders living in neighbouring countries can apply for fast-track crossing permits via the FOCBS e-portal.
Source: Federal Council media release
