European Free Trade Association

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European Free Trade Association — euro-refuseniks, numbering amongst them Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein — and possibly soon to be the UK? This would be a dramatic getting-back-together of the band, since UK was a founding member of the EFTA back in 1960. The EFTA Convention governs intra-EFTA trade, and EFTA also has free trade agreements with third countries, including the EU, though that FTA has somewhat withered in the vine, and the EFTA members have all done their own thing.

EFTA is like a gateway drug to the EEA, because to get in that club, you first have to (cough ... re)join EFTA. All of the EFTA Member States bar Switzerland are also members of the EEA. Switerland has a series of bilateral agreements with the EU.

EU directives and regulations marked as having “Text with EEA relevance” apply to the EEA members of EFTA, and sometimes to Switzerland too, though the precise reasons and basis for that are sometimes hard to fathom.

See also

• A much more plausible summary of the above from Brick Court Chambers, with fewer jovial references to The Blues Brothers, drugs etc
• Europe
• European Union
• European Economic Area