The Committee met with Professor Gylfi Zoega from the University of Iceland, Ambassador Anders Ljunggren (Swedish Presidency), Mr Martin Skylv (European Commissiomn), and Mr Martin Eyjolfsson (Icelandic Ministry of Foreign Affairs). The Committee also visited Althingi (Icelandic Parliament) and held an exchange of views with the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr Árni Þór Sigurðsson (Left Green Movement).

With regard to the Icelandic application for EU membership, the Committee was informed that the Icelandic government is currently preparing answers to about 2500 questions from the European Commission which has been presented to Iceland in the preparation of the Commission's "avis" or opinion on the Icelandic application. The Icelandic government hopes the Commission will finish its opinion in time for the European Council in December and that the latter will then declare Iceland an EU candidate country and open up for accession negotiations at the beginning of 2010. The Committee also discussed latest developments with regard to the Icesave agreement and was informed that the Icelandic government is holding talks with the Netherlands and the UK on the changes that were introduced to the agreement by Althingi at the end of August. The question is now whether, and potentially when and in what form the agreement would be re-presented to parliament, and what the outcome of a potentially new vote there would be. The EFTA Consultative Committee will continue to follow these issues in the weeks to come and discuss them again at its next meeting in Brussels in November 2009 when it will also meet with the three EEA EFTA Ministers.

Finally, the EFTA Consultative Committee held an exchange of views with Mr Kåre Bryn, EFTA Secretary-General, on latest developments with regard to EFTA's free trade agreements. The Committee very much appreciated the latest overview and focused its attention on developments in Russia and India; the state-of-play of ratification of the EFTA-Colombia agreement; and the progress of the two EFTA working groups on trade and environment and trade and labour standards. The Committee underlined the importance of continued dialogue with representatives of the two working groups both at the national and EFTA level. It also emphasised the importance of the deliberations of the two groups being taken into consideration by the EFTA Ministers when they continue to develop their third-country policy.