Legal texts

The primary agreement in the context of the EEA is the Agreement on the European Economic Area, which entered into force on 1 January 1994. The Agreement currently applies to Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway on the one hand, and the Member States of the European Union on the other.

The EEA Agreement is concerned principally with the four fundamental pillars of the Internal Market, “the four freedoms", i.e. freedom of movement of goods, persons, services and capital. The Agreement applies the fundamental freedoms of the internal market and the competition rules, as well as a wide range of related Community rules and policies, to the participating EFTA States.

The tasks and competences of the Authority and of the EFTA Court are laid down in the Surveillance and Court Agreement, which applies to Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein only.

In order to improve transparency, new rules on public access to documents were adopted in 2008. Those rules are similar to the rules contained in Community Regulation 1049/2001, which applies to the EU Institutions.