EEA – NOT ONLY EEA LAW
Basics of EEA agreement


SINGLE EUROPEAN MARKET
•This is the main goal of EU and EEA
•Economic collaboration
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bg3Php6_Tc
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHjPJPKX07o
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxxrd88-674
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8tmHxDT-48

WHAT IS EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA?
•Brings together the EU Member States and three of the EFTA States (Iceland, Liechtenstein and
Norway)established by the EEA Agreement, which was signed in Porto on 2 May 1992 and entered into
force on 1 January 1994. Liechtenstein joined on 1 May 1995. •EU legislation relating to the
internal market becomes part of the legislation of the EEA countries once they have agreed to
incorporate it. •Implementation and enforcement are then monitored by specific EFTA bodies and a
Joint Parliamentary Committee.
•Legal basis:
•Art. 217 Treaty of The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
•(Association Agreements).

SWITZERLAND CASE
•Switzerland, is not party to the EEA Agreement, but part of EFTA.
•The EU and Switzerland have signed over 120 bilateral agreements, including a free trade agreement
in 1972 and two major series of sectoral bilateral agreements that aligned a large portion of Swiss
law with that of the EU at the time of signing.  All these agreements leads to very similar legal
status in all 4 freedoms for Swiss.
•Current situation
•Bilateral relations have been severely strained since the February 2014 anti-immigration
initiative, which called for amendment of the constitution to introduce annual quotas on
immigration from the EU and to give preference to Swiss citizens in employment matters.

GOALS OF EEA
•The purpose of the European Economic Area (EEA) is to extend the EU’s internal market to countries
in the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). These countries either do not wish to join the EU or have
not yet done so.
•
•The EEA incorporates the four freedoms of the internal market (free movement of goods, people,
services and capital) and related policies

SETTING UP EEA
•In 1992, the then seven members of EFTA negotiated an agreement to allow them to participate in
the ambitious project of the European Community’s internal market, launched in 1985 and completed
at the end of 1992.
•The European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement was signed on 2 May 1992 and entered into force on
1 January 1994.
•The EFTA/EEA members, however, soon saw their numbers reduced: Switzerland chose not to ratify the
agreement following a negative referendum on the matter, and Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the
European Union in 1995.

ISLAND CASE
•In June 2009, Iceland also applied for EU membership as a way out of the global financial crisis
of 2008. The Council accepted Iceland’s application on 17 June 2010, and the negotiations started
in June 2011. However, following the April 2013 parliamentary elections, the new centre-right
coalition of the Independence and Progressive Parties halted the negotiations immediately after
coming to power in May 2013.
•Later, in March 2015, the coalition government stated in a letter to the Council of the European
Union that ‘Iceland should not be regarded as a candidate country for EU membership’.
•
•Although the government did not officially withdraw the application, the presidency of the Council
of the EU took note of the letter, and certain practical adjustments have been made within both the
Council and the Commission. Accordingly, the EU does not currently treat Iceland as a candidate
country.

SCOPE OF EEA AGREEMENT
•The EEA incorporates the four freedoms of the internal market (free movement of goods, people,
services and capital) and related policies (competition, transport, energy, and economic and
monetary cooperation).
•
•The agreement includes horizontal policies strictly related to the four freedoms: social policies
(including health and safety at work, labour law and the equal treatment of men and women);
policies on consumer protection, the environment, statistics and company law
•number of flanking policies, such as those relating to research and technological development,
which are not based on the EU acquis or legally binding acts, but are implemented through
cooperation activities

THE LIMITS OF THE EEA
•The EEA Agreement does not establish binding provisions in all sectors of the internal market or
in other policies under the EU Treaties. In particular, its binding provisions do not concern: •the
common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy (although the agreement contains
provisions on trade in agricultural and fishery products);
•the customs union;
•the common trade policy;
•the common foreign and security policy;
•the field of justice and home affairs (although all the EFTA countries are part of the Schengen
area); or
•the economic and monetary union (EMU).
•

EEA INSTITUTIONS AND MECHANISMS
•Joint Committee – composed of representatives of the EU and the three EFTA-EEA states. Meeting
once a month, this body decides what legislation — and, more generally, which EU acts (actions,
programmes, etc.) — should be incorporated into the EEA. Legislation is formally incorporated by
including the relevant acts in lists of protocols and annexes to the EEA Agreement.
•EEA Council
•composed of representatives of the Council of the EU and the Foreign Ministers of the EFTA-EEA
states, meets at least twice a year to draw up political guidelines for the Joint Committee.

APPLICATION OF LEGAL ACTS
•Joint Committee decision of approval -> incorporation to agreement-> transposition to the national
law (with some exceptions, which become part of national law IMMEDIATELY)
-Either decision by government,
-might be parliamentary approval needed.
-Transposition is a formal task, and the acts can only be adjusted technically at this point.
-There are provisions specifying that the EFTA countries should be involved in preparing EU acts.

MONITORING OF TRANSPOSITION AND APPLICATION
•EFTA Surveillance Authority and the EFTA Court.
•The EFTA Surveillance Authority maintains an internal market scoreboard that tracks the
implementation of legislation in the EEA countries.
•The EFTA Court - fulfils the judicial function within the EFTA system, interpreting the Agreement
on the European Economic Area with regard to the EFTA States party to the Agreement.

ROLE OF PARLIAMENTS
•Both the European Parliament and the national parliaments of the EFTA-EEA states are closely
involved in monitoring the EEA Agreement. •Article 95 of the agreement establishes an EEA Joint
Parliamentary Committee (JPC), which meets twice a year.
•The European Parliament and the EEA national parliaments take turns hosting this committee, whose
chair alternates annually between a Member of the European Parliament and an EEA national
parliamentarian.
•Each delegation is composed of 12 members. Parliamentarians from the Swiss Federal Assembly attend
the meetings as observers. •All EU legislation that applies to the EEA is scrutinized by the EEA
JPC, whose members have the right to put oral and written questions to representatives of the EEA
Council and the EEA Joint Committee and to express their views in reports or resolutions.
•The same procedure holds for scrutinizing the implementation of legislation.

PROBLEM OF EU AGENCIES
•We can find lot of agencies in EU for different areas
•adopting various measures or decisions relevant to the EEA, which EFTA states  adopt to their own
law. The problem is they don’t have their own representative with right to vote (these countries
have only some kind of assessor) and thus these countries can not express qualified opinion for
such acts. Their Vote is only advisory.
•The second obstacle is consequently the fact that once the EEA Joint Committee decides on the
implementation of an act into the EEA Agreement, it must be followed by adaptation of the
legislative procedure into national law, because the Constitution of EFTA countries does not permit
any other possibility.

PROBLEM OF IMPLEMENTATION
•Implementation of legal norms is quite arduous and complicated
•
•Great delay of EFTA countries with the implementation, especially in legally binding acts of EU
agencies
•
•Since 1994 has been implemented more than 7,000 EU legal norms

IMPLEMENTATION “SPECIALITY” IN NORWAY
•Norway has a very pragmatic legal system, when we talk about the language versions of the
legislation, since a large number of EU law is effective as a part of Norwegian law, before they
are translated into Norwegian language.
•This legislation at that time already been published in English and Swedish (Official Journal of
the EU), which everyone in Norway understands. In Norway, the legal language is not exclusively
Norwegian.
•The EEA Agreement has no provisions such as Art. 297 TFEU (the procedure adapting legislation). So
the decision of the EEA Join Committee may enter into force even before the legal text of the
regulations is published in Norwegian or Icelandic language in the EEA Official Journal (where all
new legislation of the EEA is published similarly as is the case with EU rules).

REASONS OF IMPLEMENTATION DELAY
•It may be caused by overloaded EEA Joint Committee, but its rather a situation when some of the
countries in the of the EEA Joint Committee block or cause delays of transposition intentionally.
•EFTA countries may delay the moment when implementation of European regulations come into force
even after the agreement was reached in the EEA Joint Committee by applying the need for putting
the decision in accordance with the Constitution(e.g. parliamentary ratification). Subsequently,
the deadline for transposition of such a decision into national law is six months, but if the delay
is announced in advance of this deadline, the decision of the EEA Joint Committee will remain
ineffective.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION
•EFTA countries has tried to solve this problem several times by adopting unilateral transposition
of some provisions into their national law, but these are only temporary solutions with unclear
legal basis.
•-> why?
•Mainly because they do not guarantee that the EU and member states recognize such acts as
equivalent to a legally binding EU / EEA regulations.
•Equally they  do not provide to economic entities the EFTA countries any rights that can be
invoked within the EU pillar relating to the the EEA

ANOTHER SOLUTION - EU AGENCIES
•SOLUTION: if the representatives of the competent national authorities of EFTA countries would
have  become full members of the EU agencies, including the right to vote and decide. From the
perspective of Norwegian constitutional law, this would open up the possibility to transfer
sovereignty to these authorities, which could be recognized as joint the EEA bodies •Problem: In
this case, there would have to be resolved task. What to do in cases where the European Commission
or the Council may affect EU authorities. Probably the best would be to transfer this authority to
the the EEA Joint Committee . This also is not an ideal solution, particularly in the case of
urgent situations where national interests are at stake, but it is difficult in the structure of
the EEA find a better alternative. •* It shouldn't be problem in the case when EU agencies
decision-making procedure may by intervened by the European Commission (the same matter would be
decided by EFTA Surveillance Authority) but when Council is in charge? Then there is the problem
because there is thus a mismatch with the EEA Agreement due to "influence" of foreign incompetent
Authority (European Council).

INCORPORATION OF EU AGENCIES INTO EEA AGREEMENT
•When EU agencies would be incorporated into the the EEA Agreement, and their acts will be decided
by of EFTA Surveillance Authority (instead of JC) • It is only a partial solution and only in
matters related to EU decision-making agencies. It is necessary to adopt a more comprehensive
solution that will cover generally all EU authorities, which can make a decision EEA relevant.

FINANCIAL MECHANISMS
•On the basis of the the EEA Agreement, the EFTA countries contribute three old (Greece, Portugal
and Spain) and all new Member States within the EEA for projects in priority areas. The Agreement
states, that the financial contribution will be closely coordinated with the bilateral contribution
that will provide Norway on the basis of Norwegian Financial Mechanism
•Supplemented by bilateral legal instruments - Memoranda of Understanding

GRANTS / NORWAY GRANTS
•In the first round of the program in the years 2004 - 2009 grants awarded exhausted 100% of the
total allocation, which was intended for the Czech Republic (104,580 miles. EUR). Within the
priority of environmental protection and sustainable development were supported 17 projects worth
nearly than 8,2 mil. EUR.
•
•2009 - 2014. The total amount of support for the Czech Republic was 131.80 miles. Eur. Mostly
environmental protection, preservation of cultural heritage

NORTHERN POLICIES
•
•EU is also linked with two partners in the EEA - Norway and Iceland in different areas of the EU
"northern policy" and forums, that focus on the rapidly developing northern part of Europe and the
whole Arctic region
•Through various initiatives

NORTHERN INITIATIVES
•
•The ‘Northern Dimension’, which has served since 2007 as a common policy for the EU, Russia,
Norway and Iceland. This policy complements the EU-Russia dialogue and has led to effective sector
partnerships for cooperation in the Baltic and Barents regions. The Northern Dimension includes a
parliamentary body — the Northern Dimension Parliamentary Forum — of which the European Parliament
is a founding member.
•

NORTHERN INITIATIVES
•The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), launched in 1992 by the EU and the riparian states
following the dissolution of the USSR. All CBSS member states participate in the Baltic Sea
Parliamentary Conference (BSPC), of which the European Parliament is also a member.
•
•27 April 2016 "Single EU policy for the Arctic region“

NORDIC - BALTIC COOPERATION
•Nordic – Baltic Stability Group - participating representatives of finance ministries, central
banks and supervisory authorities of the Nordic - Baltic countries. Legal framework for
international cooperation in tackling the crisis situation in the case of internationally active
financial institutions
•Nordic – Baltic Macro prudential Forum, within which meets senior management representatives of
central banks and supervisory authorities to discuss macro-prudential supervision and other
supervisory activities in the Nordic - Baltic region