On 22 March 2019 the Swiss Council of States (the upper house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland) and the Swiss National Council (the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland) have given its final approval for linking the Swiss Emissions Trading System (ETS) with the European Union ETS. The corresponding draft bill (BBI 2018 461) received 43 votes out of 44 members in the upper house and 118 votes out of 196 members in the lower house. These final votes follow an earlier round of approval by the Swiss Council of States on 7 March 2019 and by the Swiss National Council which passed the bill on 3 December 2018. The EU Parliament and Council had already approved the agreement in early 2018. In a next step, Switzerland and the EU have to ratify the linking agreement so that the link can become operational as of 1 January 2020.
Negotiations on the linking agreement were concluded in 2016 and the draft agreement was signed by both the EU and Switzerland on 23 November 2017. Once linked, regulated entities in both the Swiss ETS and EU ETS can use allowances from both markets for compliance.
