Similar questions have been asked once or twice on this sub, but none of the answers really made any sense to me. The EEA seems like it’s basically the EU with a couple of extra nations in the mix, with basically the same rules and regulations. What actually differs between them?
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The EEA includes EU countries and also Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. It allows them to be part of the EU ‘s single market. Switzerland is not an EU or EEA member but is part of the single market. This means Swiss nationals have the same rights to live and work in the UK as other EEA nationals
Notable differences between EAA and EU…
The EEA agreement is quite limited compared to the EU membership. Among other things, the EEA agreement does not include:
1. The EU Customs Union and trade agreements with third countries.
2. The Common Agricultural Policy.
3. The Common Fisheries Policy.
4. Also EU attempts to coordinate taxation.
5. EU countries share the same monetary policy and the same currency – EURO. AND
6. The Common Foreign and Security Policy. The EU speaks with one voice in international forums, such as the UN.
From a normal person’s perspective, probably not much. People are free to move between EU and EEA countries without going through border checkpoints and there are no tariffs or other restrictions on goods between the EU and EEA. Probably the biggest difference you would notice is that EEA countries don’t use the Euro – they all have their own currency.
On a less obvious level, people in EU countries pay an indirect “tax” to the EU in the form of their country’s membership dues, as well as from the EU collecting certain other taxes on their country’s behalf. It also seems increasingly likely that the EU will levy direct taxes on citizens of its member states at some point in the mid-term future. People in EEA states don’t pay anything to the EU.
Those EU funds go into a budget, which is then used for EU projects. EEA states aren’t generally eligible for those EU funds.
The EU is also increasingly creating new, EU wide laws and has an EU wide court system to enforce those laws – the Court of Justice of the European Union. EEA countries aren’t subject to any of those laws or the CJEU.
EEA countries *are* members of the European Court of Human Rights, though its arguably a lot harder to enforce an ECHR judgement in an EEA country than it is to enforce such a judgement in an EU country. ECHR rulings aren’t self enforcing – the courts of the nation subject to the ruling need to enforce it and, historically, most have found reasons for refusing to do so. However, the EU has been selectively treating non-compliance with ECHR rulings as a more important issue in recent years.
That latter point is actually probably the most important from a government’s perspective. The ECHR is kind of renowned for being extremely left wing and giving fairly low quality, highly politicized rulings (which is why they’re usually ignored at the national level). The EU deciding to selectively treat certain ECHR rulings as more important than others is a tool that the EU is currently using to impose EU policy decisions on dissenting members. By remaining outside of the EU, EEA countries get some of the more important economic benefits of EU membership without subjecting themselves to the political influence of the EU Council.
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