Eea Agreement English

In 1992, the sev­en EFTA mem­bers at the time con­clud­ed an agree­ment enabling them to par­tic­i­pate in the Euro­pean Community‘s ambi­tious inter­nal mar­ket project, launched in 1985 and con­clud­ed at the end of 1992. The Agree­ment on the Euro­pean Eco­nom­ic Area (EEA) was signed on 2 May 1992 and entered into force on 1 Jan­u­ary 1994. Both the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and the nation­al par­lia­ments of the EEA-EFTA States are close­ly involved in the sur­veil­lance of 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-EFTA nation­al par­lia­ments take turns host­ing this Com­mit­tee, which is chaired each year between a Mem­ber of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and an EEA-EFTA Nation­al Par­lia­men­tar­i­an. Each del­e­ga­tion is com­posed of 12 mem­bers. Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans from the Swiss Fed­er­al Assem­bly par­tic­i­pate in the meet­ings as observers. All EU leg­is­la­tion applic­a­ble to the EEA is exam­ined by the EEA Joint Com­mit­tee, 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 applies to mon­i­tor­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of the legislation.

Each year, the GCC adopts a res­o­lu­tion on the Annu­al Report of the Joint Com­mit­tee on the Func­tion­ing of the EEA Agree­ment, in which it sets out its views on the progress made in the imple­men­ta­tion of EU leg­is­la­tion and the back­log and makes rec­om­men­da­tions for the prop­er func­tion­ing of the inter­nal mar­ket. How­ev­er, the num­ber of EEA-EFTA mem­bers was quick­ly reduced: Switzer­land decid­ed not to rat­i­fy the agree­ment fol­low­ing a neg­a­tive ref­er­en­dum on the issue and Aus­tria, Fin­land and Swe­den joined the Euro­pean Union in 1995. Only Ice­land, Nor­way and Liecht­en­stein remained in the EEA. The ten new Mem­ber States that joined the EU on 1 May 2004 auto­mat­i­cal­ly became mem­bers of the EEA, as did Bul­gar­ia and Roma­nia when they joined the EU in 2007 and Croa­t­ia in 2013[1]. In order to join the EEA, it is first nec­es­sary to join EFTA. How­ev­er, it is not the oth­er way around. The Unit­ed King­dom, like Switzer­land, could be a mem­ber of EFTA with­out being a mem­ber of the EEA. If the UK did so (but did not nego­ti­ate a bilat­er­al agree­ment with the EU, as Switzer­land did), it would only be linked to the EU-EFTA Free Trade Agree­ment, whose man­date is lim­it­ed, as not­ed above.

The EU and Switzer­land have signed more than 120 bilat­er­al agree­ments, includ­ing a free trade agree­ment in 1972 and two sec­toral bilat­er­al agree­ments that bring much of Swiss law into line with that of the EU at the time of signature.…