Handelspolitikken overfor tredjeland: Økt EU-avhengighet for Norge og EFTA?

While the EU is a customs union with a common trade policy, EFTA is a free trade area where countries are free to define their trade policy for third countries. In 2025, EFTA has free trade agreements with 44 non-EU countries. The analysis of this chapter shows that the trade policy sovereignty of EFTA is not absolute and there have been considerable elements of “parallelism” between EFTA and EU external trade policy. About half of EFTAs trade agreements with third countries were linked to EU-initiated processes in the European neighborhood (Eastern Europe, Balkan, Euro-Med). From the turn of the century, EFTA independently negotiated important agreements with countries beyond Europe. Recently, there have been new elements of trade policy “parallelism”: The EEA (European Economic Area) agreement interferes more directly with third-country trade policy; e.g. in the environmental area. Furthermore, security and trade defense challenges have added a new grey area of trade measures outside the scope of EFTA’s trade agreements, with growing Norway-EU cooperation and EFTA as a bystander so far. Geopolitical tensions and a weaker global trade regime may increase the importance of EFTA’s trade agreements as a diplomatic arena.