The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is the intergovernmental organisation of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. It was set up in 1960 by its then seven Member States for the promotion of free trade and economic integration between its members.
The main tasks of the Association are threefold:
- Maintaining and developing the EFTA Convention, which regulates economic relations between the four EFTA States
- Managing the Agreement on the European Economic Area, which brings together the Member States of the European Union and three of the EFTA States – Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – in a single market, also referred to as the Internal Market
- Developing EFTA’s worldwide network of free trade agreements