About the project
The EEA Agreement forms the basis for Norwayʼs participation in the EU's internal market. The main purpose of the internal market is to ensure the free movement of goods, services, people and capital. In order to realize this purpose, common European rules are needed. After 70 years of legal development, the EU's institutions have created a comprehensive European regulatory framework, which Norway is obliged to implement nationally according to the EEA Agreement.
Firstly, the center maps the challenges of discovering the EEA dimension. One of the reasons behind the so-called NAV scandal was that large groups of lawyers completely overlooked the significance of EEA law's rules on free movement for the right to refuse social security recipients to travel abroad.
The next group of challenges relates to the interpretation and application of EEA law. Partly, it is challenging to interpret and apply common European regulations that exist in 24 different language versions, and partly the special features of the EEA Agreement contribute to further complicating the interpretation.
The centre will survey these challenges, as well as propose methods and procedures that can contribute to more correct interpretations.
Thirdly, the centre analyzes the challenges of handling tensions between national regulations and EEA law. Such tensions shall in principle be eliminated when new European rules are to be implemented in Norwegian law.
However, if relevant European legislation is either overlooked or misinterpreted, the tensions will remain, and will have to be handled by legal practitioners afterwards. The analysis of how such tensions can be avoided and handled will, among other things, involve assessing how European regulations can best be implemented in Norwegian law.
Financing
The project have financing from The Norwegian Research Council and will run from 2023 - 2028.
Cooperation
Participants from several departments at the Faculty of Law, UiO, as well as institutions such as University of Tromsø and Arena, UiO. In addition to a scientific council with participation from other European institutions.
The mail pages for this project will be in Norwegian.
