Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be adopted, on behalf of the European Union, in the EEA Joint Committee concerning an amendment to Protocol 31 to the EEA Agreement, on cooperation in specific fields outside the four freedoms (EaSI)

In order to ensure the requisite legal security and homogeneity of the Internal Market, the EEA Joint Committee is to integrate all the relevant EU legislation into the EEA Agreement as soon as possible after its adoption.

Article 78 of the EEA Agreement provides that the Contracting Parties shall strengthen and broaden cooperation in the framework of the Union’s activities in the fields of, inter alia, social policy.

The draft Decision of the EEA Joint Committee (annexed to the proposed Council Decision) aims to amend Protocol 31 to the EEA Agreement on cooperation in specific fields outside the four freedoms in order to extend social cooperation between the Contracting Parties.

Regulation (EU) No 1296/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 on a European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (“EaSI”) and amending Decision No 283/2010/EU establishing a European Progress Microfinance Facility for employment and social inclusion was already incorporated into the EEA Agreement by Decision of the EEA Joint Committee No 151/2014 of 27 June 2014, in order to allow the EEA/EFTA countries to participate in selected axes of the EaSI programme.

Norway, which currently participates only in one of the three axes of the EaSI Programme, in the EURES axis, proposed to extend this participation to cover also the Progress axis of the Programme as of 1 January 2015. Protocol 31 to the EEA Agreement should therefore be amended.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2015)172: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2015:172:FIN

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