Context: Recently Norway’s Minister of Trade and Industry has visited India with an aim to enhance collaboration between European free trade partners and India.
About The European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
Objective
Member Countries
The 4 EFTA States are competitive in global economy and score among the highest in the world in competitiveness, wealth creation per inhabitant, life expectancy and quality of life.
-
All EFTA members are open, competitive economies dedicated to progressive trade liberalization in the global arena as well as through free trade agreements.
-
In contrast to the European Union (EU), EFTA is not a customs union. This means that the individual EFTA States are free to set their own customs tariffs and arrange other foreign trade measures vis-à-vis the non-EFTA States.
-
Unlike the European Union (EU), EFTA does not have a customs union. This means that individual EFTA countries are allowed to set their own tariffs and other foreign trade measures in relation to non-EFTA countries.
-
The EFTA Council is the highest governing body of EFTA.
-
The Council usually meets 8 times a year at the ambassadorial level (heads of permanent delegations to EFTA) and twice a year at Ministerial level.
-
The EFTA Parliamentary Committee (PC) and the EFTA Consultative Committee (CC) are two important advisory bodies to the EFTA Council.
-
The PC is a forum for parliamentarians in the four member states while the CC is comprised with representatives from trade unions and employers’ organisations.
The association is in charge of the following:
-
Free commerce among EFTA members; EFTA's membership in the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes the European Union and three EFTA members (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, but not Switzerland);
-
EFTA's international network of free trade agreements.
-
The EFTA countries have one of the most extensive networks of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). These FTAs cover approximately 60 countries and territories, including the European Union.