Table of Contents

The 27 EU countries

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From 31 January 2020 the UK is no longer an EU/EEA member state. However, during the transition period EU law continues to apply.

EU candidate countries

There are five EU candidate countries. These are countries that are already in the process of incorporating EU legislation into national law.

Turkey
Montenegro
Macedonia
Serbia
Albania

Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are potential candidates. These are countries that do not yet meet the conditions for EU membership.

The 4 EFTA countries

https://brexit.law/2016/07/06/efta-and-the-eea-what-are-they/

EFTA is the European Free Trade Association. It currently has four Member States: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The UK was a founding member of EFTA in 1960, but left in 1973 to join the then EC. The EFTA Convention governs intra-EFTA trade (a full list of EFTA legal texts is available here). The EFTA States also enter EFTA Free Trade Agreements with third countries.

As regards trade between EFTA and the EU, this was originally provided for in a Free Trade Agreement (see an account of the Luxembourg declaration that followed it here) but has not been developed in some time, given that — as described below — all of the EFTA members have pursued further integration with the EU through separate agreements. The EFTA–EU Free Trade Agreement only covers tariff-free trade in relation to some products (such as agriculture and fish), but does not cover services or “non-tariff barriers” (eg divergences in regulatory standards).

The 30 EEA countries

EEA stands for European Economic Area. There are 30 EEA countries: The 27 EU member states plus Liechtenstein, Iceland , and Norway.

Three of the four EFTA Member States (all but Switzerland, which instead has a series of bilateral agreements with the EU) are also members of the EEA (the European Economic Area). The EEA Agreement, which came into being in 1994, is a treaty between the EU on the one hand and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway on the other. It effectively allows those EFTA states to participate in the EU’s Internal Market, whilst in turn contributing to the EU. EEA States are given the opportunity to express their views on EU legislation, but cannot vote on it.

When an EU law is passed, it will be marked “text with EEA relevance” if it also applies in the EEA.

EEA stands for European Economic Area. There are 30 EEA countries: The 27 EU member states plus Liechtenstein, Iceland, and Norway.

The 26 Schengen countries

The Schengen area consists of 22 of the 27 EU member states plus the 4 EFTA countries:
The EU member states Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland, Croatia and Romania are not Schengen countries.