German Minister Schäuble’s advice for UK: look at Switzerland

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Britain should look to Switzerland on how to handle relations with the European Union, for a post-Brexit model of "close co-operation", according to Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung (NZZ) on Sunday.

"Britons should take as an example how cleverly Switzerland has linked national sovereignty and close cooperation with the European Union," he said, Britain needed a "wise political solution" to Brexit added.
A series of bilateral deals have been struck between Switzerland and the EU meaning it accepts free movement of people and certain rules on trade.

Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted Britain will pursue a "clean Brexit" and will not seek to cling on to parts of its existing membership.  
The German minister branded David Cameron "irrational" for calling the EU referendum and said Brexit would be "bad in the long term" for Britain.
He said: "The world has changed and it will continue to change. One has to take the growing uncertainty in the population seriously and explain necessities, instead of arouse illusions, there is also an easy way out. 

And over  monetary policy, he underlined "We know that countries that rely on devaluations of their currency are not successful in the long term".

Schaeuble said he had "a lot of respect" for Switzerland, adding: "One has to tell the British government today: We live in the year 2017."

Switzerland is not a member of the EU but contributes to its budget and has a series of bilateral agreements that are linked by a so-called "guillotine clause" under which if one agreement is broken, they all collapse.

The latest intervention from an EU politician comes days after Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem claimed Brexit would take Britain back to the 1970s. Mr Dijsselbloem said: "Let's speak to each other again in 20 years, and then England will be back to where it was in the seventies".