Posted on 30 November 2016
The EFTA fonds is now available for research. It comprises 489 volumes of official records from the 1960’s to the mid-1980’s.
The fonds contains the official minutes of the Association along with files from the management boards and the Industrial Development and Economic Committee and documents by the Committee of Trade Experts. The collection is also composed of documents from the member countries, notes to their delegations, archives on the EFTA relations with third countries and the decisions of the EFTA Council from 1960 to 1984.
There are various documents concerning the creation and operation of the Industrial Development Fund for Portugal, the Joint EFTA-Yugoslav Committee, the creation of the multilateral free trade agreement with Spain and the establishment of the FINEFTA association system between the EFTA and Finland.
This fonds reveals the differences and similarities in the roles played by the Community of “Six” (EEC) and the Association of “Seven” (EFTA) in their contribution to the economic integration of Europe.
A second transfer of documents will be inventoried in 2017.
The European Free Trade Association was founded in 1960 by Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom as a free trade organization offering an alternative to the European Economic Community (EEC) which would later become the European Union (EU). After the accession of Denmark and the United Kingdom to the EEC in 1973 and Portugal, Austria Finland and Sweden to the EU in later years, its current members are Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland.
Access the online inventory of the EFTA Fonds.