The "new customs partnership" with the EU was one of two suggestions the government put forward last week in a paper detailing its thinking on customs before resuming talks with Brussels this month over terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU.
The EU welcomed the publication of the U.K. position as a positive step toward serious negotiations and said it was working on its own proposals on post-Brexit customs arrangements.
However EU officials reiterated that the key Brexit divorce issues needed to be resolved first before the EU would start discussing future arrangements on customs and trade.
“The quicker U.K. & EU27 agree on citizens, settling accounts and Ireland, the quicker we can discuss customs and future relationship,” Michel Barnier, Brussels’ chief Brexit negotiator, said in a message on his official Twitter account.
