Statement by ESA President Arne Røksund to the EFTA Ministerial Meeting

Ministers, Ambassador, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Last year we celebrated the 30th anniversary of EEA Agreement, and this year it is 30 years since Liechtenstein joined.

For ESA, this meant continuing our work on making the organisation fit for the future. Cooperation with external partners is a key element in this regard.

Since we met last April, ESA has hosted two Annual Surveillance Policy Dialogue at EFTA House. This is a new initiative that we launched with European Commissioner Maros Šefčovič. It brings together experts from ESA and the European Commission to discuss common challenges in ensuring uniform surveillance of the internal market.

This dialogue helps deepen the cooperation and information exchange that happens throughout the year between our two institutions when discussing concrete cases. It is complemented by regular meetings between Commissioner Šefčovič, who is now in charge of Trade and Economic Security, and inter-institutional relations.

The annual package meetings held in the States provide useful fora for discussions at the political and technical levels. They are important to better understand national situations and reach common ground on the interpretation of EEA law.

In Iceland and Norway, we have organised highly successful "ESA days" that allowed us to showcase our work and engage with a variety of stakeholders, including lawyers and government officials, who are key for the proper implementation and enforcement of the EEA Agreement.

Dialogue is key in resolving our investigations. Indeed, most of the cases we open are resolved through dialogue, but we still have a significant number of open cases. At the end of 2024, we had 162 ongoing infringement cases against the States, up from 95, and mostly concerning the late transposition or regulations.

Examples of open cases include restrictions on temporary work agencies in Norway; the calculation of parental leave benefits in Iceland; or the right to practice law in Liechtenstein.

This is also reflected in implementation of EEA directives and regulations in the States.

Our latest scoreboard data for the internal market show that in 2024 there was yet again an increase in the average transposition deficit among the States and in the number of infringement cases brought against them. The average deficit stood at 1.3% (Iceland 2.1%; Norway 1.2%; Liechtenstein 0.6%) and covers legislation such as energy, the environment, food and food safety, animal health welfare and financial services.

The average transposition deficit in the EU stood at 0.8% in the same period.

ESA's surveillance work is essential to the good functioning of the internal market. A challenge that ESA faces is the increasing workload of a different kind, of regulatory nature, stemming from expanding number of tasks that ESA has been mandated to carry out in the energy, environment, and financial services areas.

Last year, for example, ESA adopted several decisions related to the electricity market and issued its first-ever opinion on a draft permit for the geological storage of CO2 in Iceland. This is complex work, taking up considerable amounts of resources and require high specialisation.

When it comes to State aid, you may recall I mentioned a year ago that we had had a significant drop in number of cases from the COVID-19 peak.

This was the case in 2024, too, with 21 decisions adopted.

It is, however, important to keep in mind that the trend is towards larger, more complex decisions that are also more resource heavy.

Notable decisions in 2024 included an assessment of Norway's participation as a creditor in the restructuring of the SAS Group, which found that it did not involve State aid; the opening of formal investigations into alleged State aid granted by the Norwegian authorities through the Vy Group to its wholly-owned subsidiary Vy Buss, and alleged unlawful State aid granted by Norway to Bane NOR and certain contractual partners.

In the State aid area, we are required to do work to ensure a level playing field with the EU. However we also need to address complaints which can be quite resource intensive but not important for the functioning of the EEA Agreement. More than 40 per cent of those complaints could and would have been closed without resource spending if the EEA legislation had caught up with EU law developments.

In the field of competition law, ESA continued its close cooperation with the European Commission and the national competition authorities. We carried out an unannounced inspection in the retail pharmaceutical sector in Iceland in response to concerns over potential infringements of EEA antitrust rules. ESA also continued antitrust proceedings against Elkjøp, the leading retailer of electronic goods in Norway.

All of the above-mentioned areas involve litigation work. Last year was exceptionally busy at the EFTA Court, where ESA pursued several infringement cases and submitted observations in the ongoing Advisory Opinion cases, particularly on issues concerning the environment and free movement of persons, thereby contributing, along with the EFTA States, to shaping the evolution of EEA law.

For us College members, 2024 marked the third year of our mandate, which began in January 2020. While we have been at the helm of this organisation for a mere one-tenth of its existence, we are impressed with the volume and quality of work that ESA staff is handling.

Thank you and we look forward to continuing our good relations with the States and other partners.

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Photo: Marius Fiskum