Producing harmonised and comparable high quality European statistics is the main objective of the European Statistical System (ESS), which unites the national statistical institutes of the EU Member States with those of the EFTA States, as well as Eurostat.

The total number of asylum applicants in the four EFTA countries reached almost 39’000 in 2012. This represents an increase of roughly 17% compared to one year before. In 34% of all cases a positive decision was granted in first instance.

The establishment of the .eu top-level domain, new rules on the term of protection of music recordings and a new law aimed at reducing illegal deforestation were among the 86 EU acts adopted at the EEA Joint Committee meeting on 3 May 2013.

Following a decision last week by the EU to postpone the inclusion of international flights in the Emissions Trading System (ETS), the EEA Joint Committee decided by written procedure on 30 April 2013 to extend the scope of this decision to the European Economic Area.

At a meeting of the EEA Joint Subcommittee Committee I-V on 23 April 2013, the European Commission presented their views on two EEA EFTA Comments on electronic transactions and civil aviation submitted recently to the EU side by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Subcommittee I-IV covers the four freedoms of the internal market and prepares issues for the EEA Joint Committee. The Committee meets both internally on the EEA EFTA side and jointly with the European External Action Service (EEAS), who represents the EU institutions.