{"id":10199,"date":"2026-03-12T10:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T05:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=10199"},"modified":"2026-03-12T15:19:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T09:49:34","slug":"european-free-trade-association-efta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/european-free-trade-association-efta\/","title":{"rendered":"European Free Trade Association"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>European Free Trade Association Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, the Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) between India and the member states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) has completed two years since its signing.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>About European Free Trade Association<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an <\/span><b>intergovernmental organisation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> established in 1960 by the <\/span><b>Stockholm Convention.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Objective:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Promotes free <\/span><b>trade and economic integration<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> between its members within Europe and globally.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Member Countries:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The members of this organization are all open, competitive economies committed to the progressive liberalisation of trade in the multinational arena as well as in free trade agreements.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In contrast to the European Union (EU), it is <\/span><b>not a customs union.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Headquarters:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> EFTA Secretariat is <\/span><b>located in Geneva.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It assists the EFTA Council in the management of relations between the 4 EFTA States and deals with the negotiation and operation of EFTA\u2019s FTAs.<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Governance<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>EFTA Council:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Its highest governing body is the EFTA. It generally <\/span><b>meets 8 times a year<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at the ambassadorial level and twice a year at the ministerial level.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA):<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It monitors compliance with European Economic Area (EEA) rules in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>EFTA Court:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is <\/span><b>based in Luxembourg<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and has the competence and authority to settle internal and external disputes regarding the implementation, application or interpretation of the EEA agreement.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2237451&amp;reg=3&amp;lang=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PIB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>European Free Trade Association is an intergovernmental organisation established in 1960 by the Stockholm Convention. Read more about European Free Trade Association, Objectives, Member Countries, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":56053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1684,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-10199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-european-free-trade-association","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10199"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92323,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10199\/revisions\/92323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}