Vol. 409 No. 2
39 Mr. J. O'Keeffe asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the reason given by Switzerland at the recent EC/EFTA ministerial meeting for (1) threatening to pull out of the negotiations and (2) stating that it would not be bound by any formal treaty.
Negotiations between the European Community and the countries of the European Free Trade Association to create a European Economic Area (EEA) opened in July 1990. Joint EC/EFTA ministerial meetings have been held periodically to review progress and to consider outstanding issues. The most recent such meeting was held in Brussels on 13 May.
I presume that the Deputy's question refers to a report in an Irish newspaper which appears to have been written while that meeting was still in progress.
At the close of the meeting, Community and EFTA Ministers, including of course the representative of Switzerland, agreed on a joint declaration on all aspects of the negotiations which was distributed on the morning of 14 May. Switzerland did not issue any separate statement. A copy of the joint declaration has been placed in the Dáil Library.
In their joint declaration the Community and EFTA Ministers confirmed their commitment to conclude the negotiations before the summer. They noted that agreement had been achieved on several important elements of the EEA Agreement and concluded that solutions now seemed possible on the remaining issues. The Ministers also recalled that final agreement was dependent on a mutually acceptable solution to all questions covered by the negotiations as well as an overall balance of benefits, rights and obligations.
