The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is a free trade

organisation between four European countries that operates parallel to, and
is linked to, the European Union (EU).

EFTA was established on 3rd May 1960 as a trade bloc-alternative for

European states who were either unable to, or chose not to, join the thenEuropean Economic Community(EEC) which has now become the EU.

The Stockholm Convention, establishing EFTA, was signed on 4 January

1960 in Stockholm by seven countries.

Today's EFTA members are Liechtenstein, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland

the latter two being founding members.

The initial Stockholm Convention was superseded by the Vaduz Convention,

which provides for the liberalisation of trade among the member states.

The EFTA Secretariat is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

EFTA was established as an economic counterbalance to the more politically
driven European Economic Community (EEC).

Relations with the EEC, later the European Community (EC) and the
European Union (EU), have been at the core of EFTA activities from the
beginning.

 EFTA states have jointly concluded free trade agreements with a number of
other countries.

Three of the EFTA countries are part of the European Union Internal Market
through the Agreement on a European Economic Area (EEA), which took
effect in 1994; the fourth, Switzerland, opted to conclude bilateral
agreements with the EU.

Political history
British reaction to the creation of the EEC was mixed and complex.
Consequently, in 1960 (after the creation of EFTA), France vetoed British
membership. Britain was also preoccupied with the Commonwealth, which
was in a critical period.

The UK brought together several countries (including some bordering the

EEC) and decided to form the European Free Trade Association in about
1959, soon after the establishment of the 6-nation EEC.
(France, Germany,Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. These
last three are also known as the Benelux Union.)

Membership history
The founding members of EFTA
were Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and
the United Kingdom.

 During the 1960s these countries were often referred to as the Outer Seven,
as opposed to the Inner Six of the then-European Economic
Community (EEC).

Since the late 1990s, the EFTA States have "gone global" with the objective
of maintaining and strengthening their competitive position in the world.

Through EFTA, the Member States have created one of the world's largest
networks of preferential trade relations.

EFTA's network of free trade agreements (FTAs) secures economic

operators preferential access to markets currently of around 440 million
consumers outside the European Union.

EFTA's third-country policy was initially established in 1990 to mirror the

European Union's external economic relations approach after the end of the
Cold War.

In 1995, the EFTA Ministers decided to extend the reach of

preferential trade relations, geographically beyond the Euro-Mediterranean
region and substantially by including, in addition to trade in goods and
protection of intellectual property rights, areas such as trade
in services, investment, competition and government procurement.

The first broad-based EFTA free trade agreement was concluded in 2000
with Mexico. Since then, more such agreements have followed, and EFTA is
continuing to expand its network with partners around the world.

The EFTA Convention

 The EFTA Convention regulates the free trade relations between the four
EFTA Member States and provides the

legal framework for EFTA as an organisation. It covers trade in goods and

services and includes areas such as

investment and the free movement of persons.

The European Economic Area

The Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA) brings together the
27 EU members and 3 EFTA States Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway
in a single market, the Internal Market.

The agreement provides for the inclusion of EU legislation on the free

movement of goods, services, capital and persons into the legal systems of
the three EFTA EEA States, and covers cooperation in key areas such as
R&D, education, social policy, the

environment, consumer protection and culture. Switzerland is not a member

of the EEA, but has a series of bilateral agreements with the EU.

 The EFTA Free Trade Network

Cross-border trade and investment are central to the growth and dynamism
of the EFTA countries.

These are highly integrated into the global economy, together ranking 11th
in world merchandise trade

7th in world commercial services trade in 2010, and are leading international
investors.

In 2010, the European Free Trade Association celebrated its 50th

anniversary. The EFTA Convention entered into force on 3 May 1960.

In connection with this milestone in EFTA's existence and the 15th

anniversary of the EEA Agreement, which entered into force in 1994, EFTA
organised a seminar in November 2009 in Geneva, entitled Partners in
Progress.

A book including material from the seminar, called EFTA 1960 2010:
Elements of 50 Years of European History, was presented on 3 May in
Geneva and on 5 May in Brussels.