European Economic Area

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

██ EFTA countries (except Switzerland) ██ EU countries██ Acceding EU countries (in EAA entry talks) Together these form the EEA.

The European Economic Area (EEA) came into being on January 1, 1994 following an agreement between the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the European Union (EU). It was designed to allow EFTA countries to participate in the European Single Market without having to join the EU. The EEA is also known by a variety of other acronyms in other languages, in particular, it is known as EØS (Europeiske økonomiske samarbeidsområde) in Denmark and Norway in Iceland as EES (Evrópska efnahagssvæðið), in Sweden also as EES (Europeiska Ekonomiska Samarbetsområdet), in Germany as EWR (Europäischer WirtschaftsRaum), in France as EEE (l'Espace Économique Européen) and in Italy as SEE (Spazio Economico Europeo).

1 Membership
2 EEA freedoms
3 EEA legislation
4 Institutions
5 See also
6 References

[edit] Membership

In an obligatory referendum, Switzerland's citizens chose not to participate in the EEA. Instead, the Swiss are linked to the European Union by Swiss-EU bilateral agreements, with a different content from that of the EEA agreement.

The current members of the EEA, contracting parties, are three of the four EFTA states - Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, without Switzerland – and the 25 EU Member States along with the European Community.

In July 2006, acceding EU members Bulgaria and Romania launched trilateral entry talks with the European Commission and the EEA, as part of the two countries' accession treaty. In September 2006, the European Commission set the date of EU accession for Bulgaria and Romania at 1 January 2007.

[edit] EEA freedoms

The EEA is based on four "freedoms"; the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital between the EEA countries. For these freedoms countries have to pay money to the EU but they have no say in what happens to this money or how much they have to pay the EU, the main reason for paying this sum is so they do not have to pay the 4% tax on goods that they export into the EU.

[edit] EEA legislation

The non EU members of the EEA have agreed to enact legislation similar to that passed in the EU in the areas of Social Policy, Consumer Protection, Environment, Company Law and Statistics. (1. pillar)

[edit] Institutions

A Joint Committee consisting of the EEA EFTA States plus the European Commission (representing the EU) has the function of extending relevant EU law to the non EU members.

An EEA Council meets twice yearly to govern the overall relationship between the EEA members.

Rather than setting up pan-EEA institutions, the activities of the EEA are regulated by the EFTA Surveillance Authority and the EFTA Court, which parallel the work of the EU's European Commission and European Court of Justice. See EFTA for further information.