The European Economic Area (EEA) comprises the countries of the European Union (EU), plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. It was established on 1 January 1994 following an agreement between the member states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the European Community (which became the EU). It allows Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to participate in the EU's Internal Market without being members of the EU. They are obliged to adopt all EU legislation related to the single market, except laws on agriculture and fisheries. One EFTA member, Switzerland, has not joined the EEA, but has a similar agreement with the EU.
Read more about European Economic Area: Origins, Membership, Rights and Obligations, Legislation, Institutions, EEA and Norway Grants
Famous quotes containing the words european, economic and/or area:
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The Federated Republic of Europe—the United States of Europe—that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace to the world.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains,—if only that the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)