Abstract
This working paper analyses the institutional challenges related to external differentiated integration in the European Economic Area (EEA). It focuses mainly on the formulation of EEA-relevant EU legislation and its incorporation into the EEA Agreement. The paper shows that over the past 25 years various institutional arrangements have been added to the initial institutional framework of the EEA in order to increase and maintain substantive integration. However, the European Union (EU) has been consistent in protecting the autonomy of its decision making which is why the EEA EFTA States have far-reaching access to EU policy making but never the right to vote. The EEA EFTA States therefore insist on separate EEA decision making whenever possible. This has given them a surprisingly large amount of room for manoeuvre for instance, by deliberately delaying the incorporation of politically sensitive acts, and by making EEA-specific adaptations to EU acts. On the other hand, they were also forced to introduce simplified procedures for EEA decision making in order to cope better with the high legislative dynamics of the EU. These procedures give priority to the efficacy of the EEA over the decision-making autonomy of the EEA EFTA States by establishing a more or less automatic rule transfer from the EU to the EEA. Thanks to its far-reaching functional and institutional integration the EEA provides a good example for the analysis of the legal and political feasibility of external differentiated integration. Above all, the results of the empirical analysis demonstrate how difficult it is to reconcile the integration reservations of non-Member States with the principles of the EU in an institutional framework designed to ensure the long-term good functioning of their relations.
Highlights
This working paper analyses the institutional challenges related to external differentiated integration in the European Economic Area (EEA)
This paper has shown that EEA decision making and the EEA European Free Trade Association (EFTA) States’ access to European Union (EU) policy making are interdependent
If we focus on the efficacy of the EEA, it is without doubt that far-reaching representation of the EEA EFTA States in EU policy making is favourable, as it is likely to reduce the number of procedural steps and the actors involved in EEA decision making
Summary
This working paper analyses the institutional challenges related to external differentiated integration in the European Economic Area (EEA). To date there are various models of external differentiated integration in place such as the European Economic Area (EEA), the association agreements of the EFTA States to Schengen and Dublin, the EU-Swiss bilateral relations, the EU-Turkey customs union, the EU’s relations with the small-sized states of Andorra, Monaco and San Marino, the Energy Community, as well as the association agreements with the Eastern European Countries in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) These models provide to ‘varying degrees access to and participation in the EU’s internal market as well as an institutionalized relationship involving extensive reciprocal rights and obligations, approximation to or adoption of the acquis, policy cooperation and integration’ (Gstöhl and Phinnemore 2019b: 175).
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