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Court Of Justice Of The European Free Trade Agreement - Description [2003] PICTRes 8 (31 October 2003)
Court Of Justice Of The European Free Trade Agreement
The
European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) was established in 1960 to remove
trade barriers between its member States; currently those members are
Iceland,
Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. In 1992, the European
Communities, the EFTA, and their member States, entered into
an agreement
aimed at integrating the two economic areas into a so-called European
Economic Area (EEA). The aim
of the EEA is to guarantee the free movement
of persons, goods, services, and capital; to provide equal conditions
of competition; and to abolish discrimination on grounds of nationality
in the area.
The EEA Agreement provides for the creation of three independent EFTA
organs: the Standing Committee, the Surveillance
Authority (ESA), and
the Court of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA Court), which closely
mirror the
EC Council, the EC Commission, and the ECJ. The EFTA Court
is entrusted with monitoring the obligations of those EFTA States
which
have ratified the EEA Agreement (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, but
not Switzerland) and the functioning
of the ESA under EEA law. Conversely,
the Court of Justice of the European Communities ensures the respect of
EEA law by the communities' member States and organs. It is evident that
for the EEA Agreement to work, coordination between
the EFTA Court and
the ECJ had to be guaranteed.
To this end, article 106 of the EEA Agreement establishes an exchange
of information system between the two courts.
Whenever the EEA Agreement
and EC laws are identical, the former will be interpreted according to
the jurisprudence
of the ECJ/CFI prior to the signing of the EFTA Agreement,
without prejudice to later jurisprudence. Under article 3.2
of the ESA/Court
Agreement, the EFTA Court shall pay due account to the principles
laid down by the relevant
rulings by the [ECJ] given after the day of
signature of the EEA Agreement and which concern the interpretation of
that Agreement or of such rules of the [treaty] in so far they are identical .
Moreover, in order to achieve as uniform an interpretation of the EEA
Agreement as possible, the agreement establishes
additional procedures.
According to article 105 of the EEA Agreement, the EFTA Joint Committee
shall keep under
constant review the development of the case law of the
Court of Justice of the European Communities and the EFTA Court.
If the
EEA Joint Committee is not able to settle the divergence in jurisprudence
between the two courts, the
contracting parties may agree to request the
ECJ to give ruling on the interpretation of the relevant rules. Protocol
48 to the EEA Agreement stipulates that decisions taken by the
EEA Joint Committee under Articles 105 and 111
may not affect the case-law
of the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
Finally, to foster homogeneity, all EEA contracting parties can be represented
in cases before the EFTA Court,
and the ECJ/CFI. According to the Statute
of the EFTA Court, the Community and the European Commission are represented
before the EFTA Court by an agent appointed for each case. They are entitled
to submit statements or written
observation to the Court. Similarly, according
to the EC Statute, the EFTA States and the EFTA Surveillance Authority
are represented before the ECJ, and when a national court in EC Member
States requests a preliminary ruling from
that court, the EFTA states
shall be notified and allowed to submit statements of case or written
observations
to the Court. Furthermore, in light of the homogeneity between
EEA law and EU law, and when the ECJ/CFI are addressing
EU law of importance
for the EEA Agreement, the EFTA Surveillance Authority submits written
and/or oral observations.
Data obtained from the Project on International Courts and Tribunals (PICT)
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URL: http://www.worldlii.org/int/other/PICTRes/2003/8.html
