European Economic Area. An
EU cooperation with
EFTA, established in the early nineties. The intention of the EEA is to integrate and assimilate EU laws and rules into non-EU countries. The reason for this is to ease the restrictions on trade within Europe. The EEA system is suited for countries that do not want a full EU membership, but want to particiate gradually. Members of EFTA have an observatorial status at EU parliament votes, but no right to vote. Members of EEA have to either adopt the EU law system or integrate them into their law systems. Views on new laws are collected from EFTA countries during the preliminary works on the law, so the system is sort of balanced. As illustrated, the EEA is a bridge between the two separate systems that are EU and EFTA.
|---------------------------------|
| EEA |
|---------------------------------|
-------- --------
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| EU | |EFTA|
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
-------- --------