EFTA launches improved EEA-Lex

EEA-Lex was created in 2014 and has become an important tool for people working with EEA law, including public officials, companies, lawyers and law faculties.

Until now, searches in EEA-Lex have only been possible using the so-called “Celex number” of the EU act. This limitation no longer exists. The new search form allows you to search using numbers or words, be they in the titles or inside the documents.

Although searches in English will give you the widest possible results, searching in Icelandic or Norwegian will return acts that have been translated and published in the EEA Supplement to the Official Journal. Search results can also be refined through various categories: stage in the decision-making process, type of act, area and adoption year.

From the results list, users are directed to fact sheets. These are now stable individual pages with a unique address (URL), which can also be found through Google and other search engines.

For an EU act incorporated into the EEA Agreement, the fact sheet includes links to both the EU act and the Joint Committee Decision (JCD) incorporating it. As a JCD may include amendments or derogations to the EU act, it is essential to consult it in order to see how EU law has been extended to the EEA.

EEA-Lex is updated daily using data from EFTA’s internal legal database.

Since the entry into force of the EEA Agreement more than 20 years ago, nearly all EU legislation covering the Internal Market has been extended to Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. In total, more than 10 000 EU directives, regulations and decisions have been made part of the Agreement, of which around 5 000 are in force today. At the same time, a number of new acts are currently under consideration for incorporation.

You can check out the EEA-Lex at www.efta.int/eea-lex