ERIC Regulation incorporated into EEA Agreement

Published 20-03-2015
Ms Bergdis Ellertsdottir, Ambassador, Icelandic Mission to the EU, Mr Ragnar G. Kristjansson, Icelandic Mission to the EU and Sigríður Eysteinsdóttir, Councellor, Icelandic Mission to the EU
On 20 March 2015, the EEA Joint Committee adopted 40 decisions incorporating 61 legal acts into the EEA Agreement. Among them were the Regulation on the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) and the Decision on Serious Cross-border Threats to Health.
The aim of the ERIC Regulation is to provide a legal framework for the establishment and operation of European research infrastructures. The regulation can be used for establishing new research infrastructures or for operating existing ones.
 
Participation in an ERIC is important for the national research communities in the EEA EFTA States as modern research infrastructures are so large and expensive to establish and operate that it is not reasonable for a country to do it on its own.
 
Also adopted at the meeting was a decision to improve preparedness and strengthen capacity to coordinate responses to cross-border health emergencies. Experiences from the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland in 2010 and the outbreak of E. coli in 2011 have demonstrated the need to improve coordination between different sectors. The decision is an important step towards improving health security in the European Economic Area.
 
Two decisions on Protocol 4 to the EEA Agreement were also adopted. One aligns the text of Protocol 4 to the one in the Regional Convention on Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Preferential Rules of Origin and is the precondition for this Convention to be applied. The second, following on from Croatia’s accession to the European Union in 2014, ensures that products exported from an EEA EFTA State or Croatia before the date of provisional application of the EEA Enlargement Agreement, as well as those imported after this date, are granted EEA preferential tariff treatment.
 
The EEA Joint Committee, chaired this semester by the EU, is responsible for the day-to-day management of the EEA Agreement. It provides a forum for the EEA EFTA States and the EU to exchange views and take decisions by consensus to incorporate EU legislation into the EEA Agreement.
 

Full list of EEA Joint Committee Decisions adopted on 20 March 2015.

Texts of EEA Joint Committee Decisions adopted in 2015.

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