With regard to the international financial and economic crisis, the Committee held an in-depth exchange of views on latest developments in the four EFTA States, on the specific concerns of the diffirent social partners, and on the involvement of the latter in national measures so far undertaken to stem the crisis. This was followed by a presentation by the European Commission (DG Internal Market) on latest developments in the EU with a focus on the financial policy area. The Commission speaker presented the so-called Larosière (High-level Group on Financial Supervision) Report and the proposals that the Commission had issued in the field of financial supervision and regulation (i.e. Commission Communication of 4 March 2009) in preparation for the EU summit the following week.

With regard to third country relations, the Consultative Committee received a briefing from the EFTA Secretary-General on latest developments and on the mandate and progress of two ad-hoc working groups that the EFTA Ministers had established in June and November 2008 on trade and environment and trade and labour standards. Following this initial discussion, the Committee discussed and adopted a statement on "The need for increased dialogue with regard to EFTA's free trade agreements" in which it as an advisory body to the EFTA Ministers asked to meet with the chair of the two ad-hoc working groups in order to be able to give input to their preparatory work. More generally, it underlined the importance of strengthening the dialogue with the EFTA authorities on potentially new initiatives in the field of trade and environment and trade and labour standards, and asked the EFTA Ministers to consider establishing joint consultative committees as an integral part of the most important free trade agreements.

The statement is available here