While focusing on the Treaty itself, the Committee also stresses the importance of seeing it in a broader context and as an end product of a long reform process of the European Union which has changed the environment in which the EEA Agreement operates. Since the EEA Agreement was signed in 1992, the EU has not only become much larger and more heterogeneous but has also introduced new methods (e.g. Open Method of Coordination) and instruments (e.g. soft law) and enhanced the powers of the European Parliament. The Committee raises the question to what extent these and other developments will have an impact on the functioning of the EEA Agreement. Based on its initial analysis and questions, the Committee urges the EEA EFTA States to undertake a legal and political assessment of the latest Treaty and also to analyse more broadly the impact on the EEA cooperation of 15 years of EU reforms.

It is of particular interest to the Consultative Committee that the authorities of the EEA EFTA States develop an even closer dialogue with the EEA EFTA social partners, similarly to the way the dialogue has evolved within the EU. The Committee considers that this could be achieved at various levels of government, including by establishing a new Committee of locally and regionally elected representatives within the EFTA structure. The Committee also asks the relevant EEA EFTA authorities to organise relevant information activities on the Treaty of Lisbon for EEA EFTA stakeholders both at home and in Brussels , and to promote the EEA and EFTA more actively within the EU institutions in Brussels .