EEA Agreement: arrangements for implementing the Agreement on the European Economic Area EEA

In a supplementary working document the Commission provides a specific provision concerning the procedure to be followed in order to establish the Community position in the EEA Joint Committee in cases of a simple extension of the acquis to the EFTA countries. What is required is a relatively flexible procedure so as not to slow down the decision making procedure (thus modifying that currently provided for in the EEA Agreement) and not to weaken the Community's position in this committee. The procedure chosen thus seeks to grant the Commission a general mandate for all the cases where the Community's position is a request for a simple extension of the acquis to the EEA. It would thus be in a position to express the Community's position in these specific cases. In all other cases the procedure laid down by the Treaty should apply (e.g. EFTA participation in EC programmes in the area of flanking policies, dispute settlement, exceptional derogations from the acquis, etc.). A simplified procedure is also provided for the European Parliament which will be informed and its opinion requested on the 'EEA extension' of a Community act. Lastly, the modified proposal lays down the internal Community procedure for the adoption of the interim acquis package (i.e. all the acts relevant to the EEA published after the conclusion of the EEA Agreement and not yet contained in the EEA Agreement). �