The EU and Switzerland are for years economically and socially very closely connected. The EU even represents for Switzerland the most important trade partner. However the institutional status of relations between them remains uncertain. After the Swiss Federal Council annulled the negotiations for a frame agreement in spring 2021, in 2022 the approaching between Switzerland and the EU is again in upwind.
The basis for the relations between the EU and Switzerland is the Free Trade Agreement of 1972, which is still valid. From this time numerous agreements followed, as for instance in 2004 the Swiss participation at the Schengen Convention and the Dublin Regulation- but still there is no superordinate frame, which would define the role of Switzerland on the EU inner market.
In February 2022 the Swiss Federal Council decided that Switzerland should from now on discuss each agreement separately about the frame conditions, what is however in strong opposal to the tendencies of the EU to define one frame valid over all the agreements.
Actually there is not to expect any reversal about the change of the situation in Bruxelles. The State Secretary at the Swiss Foreign Ministry and the chief negotiator Livia Leu had expressed before the discussions on Friday primarily the critic about the Swiss exclusion from „Horizon Europe“, but she also stressed that in the view of the actual geopolitical situation the cooperation in Europe should be stronger and also the exit position for possible new negotiations should be better.