Statistics Explained

Glossary:European Economic Area (EEA)

See EEA disambiguation page for other meanings of EEA.

The European Economic Area, abbreviated as EEA, consists of the Member States of the European Union (EU) and three countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway; excluding Switzerland).

The Agreement on the EEA entered into force on 1 January 1994. It seeks to strengthen trade and economic relations between the contracting parties and is principally concerned with the four fundamental pillars of the internal market, namely: the free movement of goods, people, services and capital. The availability of comparable statistical data is considered as relevant to the four freedoms and is therefore included in the agreement.

EU enlargements had a direct impact on the EEA Agreement, and the enlarged EEA now includes 30 countries (EFTA countries in italic):

Belgium (BE) Spain (ES) Hungary (HU) Slovakia (SK)
Bulgaria (BG) France (FR) Malta (MT) Finland (FI)
Czechia (CZ) Croatia (HR) Netherlands (NL) Sweden (SE)
Denmark (DK) Italy (IT) Austria (AT) Germany (DE)
Cyprus (CY) Poland (PL) Iceland (IS) Estonia (EE)
Latvia (LV) Portugal (PT) Liechtenstein (LI) Ireland (IE)
Lithuania (LT) Romania (RO) Norway (NO) Greece (EL)
Luxembourg (LU) Slovenia (SI)

Related concepts