EFTA Standing and EEA Joint Committees meet on 31 March and 1 April 2011  
Published:  01-04-2011

EFTA LOGO
The EFTA Standing and EEA Joint Committees met in Brussels on 31 March and 1 April 2011 respectively. In preparation for the meeting of the EEA Joint Committee, the EEA EFTA States met in the Standing Committee to verify and approve the 73 legal acts to be incorporated into the EEA Agreement. One of the decisions relates to the inclusion of aviation activities in the EU Emissions Trading System (see separate news item). The Norwegian delegation reported on an official visit earlier this week to Oslo by the President of the European Council, Mr Herman Van Rompuy. Meetings were held with, among others, the Norwegian Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

EFTA’s Secretary-General reported on recent developments in EFTA’s third-country relations. The Standing Committee also discussed the distribution of EEA relevant legislative proposals emanating from the European Commission to the national parliaments of the EEA EFTA States. The Committee agreed that the EFTA Secretariat would send a letter to the parliaments offering to distribute these legislative proposals.

At the Joint Committee meeting, 41 decisions were adopted incorporating 73 legal acts into the EEA Agreement.

The Icelandic delegation briefed the Committee on the revised Icelandic strategy for the gradual liberalisation of its capital control measures, adopted under Article 43 of the EEA Agreement.

The European Commission gave two presentations: on the Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative “Resource-efficient Europe” (given by Mr Stefan Moser of the Commission’s Secretariat-General) and on the EU’s Maritime Transport Strategy (presented by Mr Torsten Klimke, DG MOVE).

Finally, the EFTA Chair asked about the situation with regard to the modernised social security coordination rules, which were expected to be incorporated into the EEA Agreement, underlining the importance of maintaining homogeneity within the EEA in this field.

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