EEA Joint Committee incorporates 142 EU legal acts into the EEA Agreement

Liechtenstein’s Ambassador to the EU Pascal Schafhauser co-chairing the Joint Committee meeting on behalf of the EEA EFTA States

The EEA Joint Committee met for the third time in 2023 on 28 April in the EU Commission’s Berlaymont building in Brussels. The meeting was presided over by Nicolas von Lingen of the Secretariat of the European Commission. Liechtenstein’s Ambassador to the EU Pascal Schafhauser co-chaired the meeting on behalf of the EEA EFTA States.

In the meeting, 67 Joint Committee decisions were adopted, incorporating 142 EU legal acts into the EEA Agreement. After today’s meeting, the number of EU acts outstanding will go down to 473. This significant reduction is a result of our joint efforts on files long outstanding and good cooperation on new, complex files, noted Ambassador Schafhauser.

Among the incorporated acts was the EASA regulation and related files that aim to establish and maintain a high and uniform level of civil aviation safety in Europe. Other important incorporated acts concerned harmonisation rules for various categories of fertilising products and the establishment of the European Agency for Safety and Health at work (EU-OSHA).

With regard to the recent EEA EFTA Comment on the legislative proposal for a Single Market Emergency Instrument (SMEI), Ambassador Schafhauser stressed that Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway welcome the proposal. In their comment they highlight that the principle of proportionality should be respected and recommend that the Commission further explains how national authorities should react when each SMEI mode is triggered. The EEA EFTA States also propose to delete the references to the EEA EFTA States’ participation in the proposed Advisory Group in Article 4. If the final act were to be incorporated into the EEA Agreement, the EEA EFTA States’ participation should rather be regulated in a Joint Committee Decision.

The European Commission presented a briefing on the EU’s overall State aid policy for the internal market, including the EU response to the US Inflation Reduction Act.

The EEA Joint Committee is responsible for the management of the EEA Agreement and is a forum in which views are exchanged and decisions are taken by consensus to incorporate EU legislation into the EEA Agreement. The committee is comprised of the ambassadors of the EEA EFTA States and representatives of the Secretariat-General of the European Commission.

Find photos from the meeting here