Swiss labour leader declares draft EU treaty "dead"

An EU flag flies beside Switzerland's national flag near the German-Swiss border in Rheinfelden, Germany, March 11, 2019. REUTERS/Arnd WIegmann

ZURICH (Reuters) - The new head of Switzerland's powerful labour union federation rejected a draft treaty with the European Union and called for restarting negotiations with the country's most important trading partner.

Opposition from labour, traditionally close to the Social Democrats in the four-party coalition in Bern, underscores the difficulty of implementing an accord that Brussels has demanded for a decade and that took more than four years to negotiate.