The EU have said, after the problems it caused them with Norway and Switzerland being granted free trade arrangements, they will not consider granting another country EFTA status.
The EU gave those countries EFTA status. EFTA is a trading arrangement managed and overseen by the EU, and is not a bloc as such.
EFTA is not open to negotiation. It is not an option.
I'm sorry but you need to read up on EFTA. EFTA was formed off the back of countries like Norway and Switzerland rejecting EU membership. Norway just for example was in the EEC many years ago when it existed however Norwegians rejected joining what became the EU and so they formed EFTA with other countries.
EFTA is NOT managed by the EU, nothing is granted by the EU because EFTA has nothing to do with the EU. Countries like Norway rejected EU membership however the consequence of that was they had to find a medium to maintain trade within the EEA. EFTA trading arrangements are not managed or overseen by the EU, any EFTA country can sign trade deals independent of anyone else.
The only relationship that EFTA states have with the EU is through their negotiated participation within the EEA single market but the cost of that relationship is they have no say in the rules of that market and they have to accept freedom of movement. Some would say actually that there is a mutual advantage to freedom of movement but obviously some wouldn't.
Please remember that the EU does not contain all of Europe, the EU is just a political organisation that sits within the EEA. It is the EU and its political structure that I and many others are skeptical of. I voted remain for economic reasons but I would vote to leave the EU if it was possible to retain the economic benefits through a decent deal but that wasn't asked of us in the referendum. I am not interested in the EU, I am interested in trade with Europe and that's where we will suffer economically.
EFTA and Switzerland prove that it is possible to maintain some trading relationship and trade within the single market without having to be an EU member. The biggest problem of leave was that the final deal ensured we left the EEA and not just the EU. Nobody however ever voted to leave Europe, they voted to leave the political aspect of the EU.
Not a single leave voter voted to leave with any specific deal or none at all because that wasn't the question of the referendum. The mitigation of leave therefore came down to the politicians who had to negotiate it and in the end it's those politicians, the poisonous political climate and party politics that is to blame for how things ended up. The fact that even now Labour have no policy for making amends on the EU deal just proves it, they won't tackle this topic because they know they'd lose the election!
‘Everyone wants to sell you goods and services,’ minister says.
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