The European Free Trade Association

The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is an intergovernmental organisation set up for the promotion of free trade and economic integration to the benefit of its four Member States: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

The Association manages the EFTA Convention; EFTA’s worldwide network of free trade and partnership agreements, and the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement.

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News Releases

EFTA Parliamentary Meeting
The Committee of Members of Parliament of the EFTA Countries and the Committee of Members of Parliament of the EFTA States (together “the EFTA Parliamentary Committee”) met in Brussels on 6 February 2012 to discuss the functioning of the EEA, the latest political developments in the EFTA countries and the EU, and to prepare for a visit to Indonesia.

Delegations from the EFTA States and Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan met for a fourth round of negotiations on a broad-based prefer­ential trade agreement from 16 to 19 January 2012 in Kazan, Russia.

Fredrik Sejersted

On 19 January 2012, a record 170 participants from both the public and private sectors attended the EFTA Secretariat’s biannual seminar on the EEA.

The first part of the seminar was dedicated to presentations on the EFTA Secretariat, the EFTA Court, the EFTA Surveillance Authority, the EFTA Statistical Office and the EFTA Financial Mechanism Office. These focused on the day-to-day management of the EEA Agreement in the different institutions’ respective areas of competence.

Capital requirements
Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway support the trans­position of the Basel III minimum capital require­ments into EU legislation. However, they believe that each EEA Member State must retain the necessary competence to set higher capital requirements where it is appropriate, based on financial stability considerations.
Airplane
Yesterday, the EEA Joint Committee decided to incor­porate three regulations to ensure a high level of safety in the European civil aviation sector.

Publications

EFTA at a Glance
EFTA at a glance

This two-page factsheet gives a general overview of the role and tasks of the European Free Trade Association. Several other factsheets can also be downloaded from our website.

EFTA Bulletin 1/2011
EFTA/EU Statistical Cooperation Handbook

EFTA Bulletin issue 1, 2011. The purpose of the updated handbook is to describe the institutional and practical aspects of EFTA statistical cooperation within and outside the EEA Agreement and the Swiss-EU Agreement.

This is EFTA 2011
This is EFTA 2011

This publication is an overview of EFTA's activities and institutional framework.

Annual Report 2010
Annual Report 2010

50th Annual Report of the European Free Trade Association, 2010.

Guide to EU & EEA Programmes - New and Updated Edition 2010

EFTA Bulletin issue 1, 2010.

This publication is an updated overview of EU programmes with EEA EFTA participation.

50th Anniversary of EFTA 1960-2010

In 2010, the European Free Trade Association celebrated its 50th anniversary. The EFTA Convention entered into force on 3 May 1960. You can read more about the publication and order it here.

EEA 15th Anniversary
European Economic Area 1994-2009

This commemorative publi­cation revisits the origins of the European Economic Area (EEA) and reproduces extracts of some of the key official texts and documents from the time of its inception, supplemented by pictures from its first 15 years of functioning.