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

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.

The aim of this draft Joint Committee Decision is to include Horizon 2020 into the EEA Agreement. This would allow the EEA/EFTA countries to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by this biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020).

The participation of the EEA/EFTA countries in Horizon 2020 programme will have budgetary implications since these countries will not only participate in the initiatives in this framework, but at the same time they shall also financially contribute. This is the reason why this draft Joint Committee Decision is to be adopted in the form of a Council Decision.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)141: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:141:FIN

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