In Bern, on 11 February 2019, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Swiss Confederation sign the Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Swiss Confederation. On the same day they also sign the Additional Agreement among the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, extending to the Principality of Liechtenstein certain provisions of the United Kingdom–Switzerland Trade Agreement. The authentic texts are English and German; in the event of inconsistency, English prevails. The public negotiators named are Liam Fox and Guy Parmelin.

The preamble of the United Kingdom–Switzerland Trade Agreement proceeds from the fact that the trade-related agreements between Switzerland and the European Union will cease to apply to the United Kingdom when it ceases to be an EU Member State or at the end of any transitional period. The Parties desire that the rights and obligations under those agreements should continue to apply between them. The overriding objective, Article 3, is to preserve the existing trading relationship under the Switzerland–EU agreements and to provide a platform for further trade liberalisation.

The Agreement incorporates and modifies, so far as possible, the EEC–Switzerland Free Trade Agreement done at Brussels on 22 July 1972 and the Agreement on trade in agricultural products done at Luxembourg on 21 June 1999, as well as other relevant Switzerland–EU trade instruments. It continues the elimination of duties on the vast majority of goods traded between the United Kingdom and Switzerland, in place of WTO tariffs after Brexit.

The Additional Agreement recalls that Liechtenstein forms part of the Swiss customs territory under the Customs Treaty of 29 March 1923, without all Free Trade Agreement and Agriculture Agreement provisions automatically applying to Liechtenstein. Protocol No. 3 of the Free Trade Agreement treats Liechtenstein products as of Swiss origin. Article 1 of the Additional Agreement applies to Liechtenstein the Free Trade and Agriculture Agreements as incorporated and modified by the United Kingdom–Switzerland Trade Agreement, with adaptations in the Annex.

The Additional Agreement enters into force when the United Kingdom–Switzerland Trade Agreement enters into force; both are approved under domestic procedures. In practice the continuity package takes effect with the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU regime, from 1 January 2021. The instruments are published as Command Papers (Switzerland No. 4 (2019); Liechtenstein No. 1 (2019)).

The present text concerns the signatures at Bern on 11 February 2019; it is not the 1972 EEC–Switzerland Free Trade Agreement or the 1999 Agriculture Agreement, which the continuity package reproduces.

Image: Liam Fox; CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Switzerland–Liechtenstein–United Kingdom Trade Agreement. Treaty text: Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom and the Swiss Confederation, Bern, 11 February 2019 (CP 55 / Switzerland No. 4 (2019)).