Outsiders on the inside: Swiss and Norwegian lessons for the UK

Calls are multiplying in the UK for a renegotiation of Britain’s relationship to the European Union. Many British eurosceptics are eyeing Norway and Switzerland and asking whether Britain would be better off outside the EU with Norwegian and Swiss-style association agreements. The answer is no, because these association agreements increasingly frustrate many Norwegians and Swiss, and the EU itself. Norway’s European Economic Area (EEA)arrangement has denuded the content of the country’s political debate, while Switzerland’s relationship with the EU has reached an institutional impasse.