The UK and Switzerland want to strengthen their customs cooperation. The Federal Office of Customs and Border Security (FCO) and HMRC signed a memorandum of understanding in London on Monday.
According to a statement by the FCO, this Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is intended to form the basis for the further development of existing customs and trade relations.
This further development is in line with the Federal Council’s “Mind the gap” strategy.
The strategy focuses on bilateral agreements with the UK after Brexit.
The MoU is intended to promote bilateral exchanges between customs authorities on modernisation, reforms and digitalisation.
HMRC is interested in experiences with digitalisation solutions that Switzerland is already implementing as part of the Digitalisation and Transformation Programme (DaziT), the FCO wrote.
The new agreement comes as Bern is yet to reach a deal with the EU after months of talks.
The EU has pushed for years for a treaty to cap an array of bilateral accords and require the Swiss to routinely adopt changes to single market rules.
Talks between Bern and its biggest trading partner broke off in May last year over concerns about yielding too much sovereignty to the bloc.
In December, European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said the bloc’s relationship with Bern is at risk of “disintegration”.
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Mr Sefcovic, who oversees EU-Swiss affairs, said: “The EU’s relationship with Switzerland is in danger of disintegrating.
“Should new negotiations not lead to success, the bilateral agreements that were still in force would gradually expire and make our relationship obsolete at some point.”
Switzerland would have to give assurances it would abide by EU internal market rules if Bern is committed to new negotiations, he said.
The EU wants Switzerland to agree to a dynamic alignment of its laws with EU law, a level playing field, a mechanism to settle disputes and regular contributions to EU funds for poorer EU members.
The EU boss added: “We urgently need to know from Switzerland whether it seriously wants to negotiate with us.”
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In November, the European Union urged Switzerland to set out a clear timetable for resolving the EU internal market issues by January.
Mr Sefcovic continued: “We have to know what we want to talk about when – so that it is clear that the discussion will not last 20 or 30 years.”
EU-Swiss economic ties are governed by more than 100 bilateral agreements stretching back to 1972.
A collapse in relations over time could jeopardise Switzerland’s de facto membership of the EU common market that Bern is keen to maintain.
Additional reporting by Monika Pallenberg
