The suspension of Norwegian legislative authority under the European Economic Agreement

Norway is not represented in the European Parliament, and the common commit tees of parliaments in which both the Storting and the European Parliament are represented have only marginal influence. Accordingly, the Norwegian pa rliamentarians are excluded from a lawmaking process of outmost importance. With solid foundation, one might say that Norwegian lawmaking authority ha s been suspended in areas covered by the EEA. Our research shows that little attention is paid to the EEA issues in the S torting. Few of the representatives pay attention to these issues. Generall y, the interest in the EEA is remarkably low. One reason is that most of th e issues are of a rather technical character. Another reason is that EEA is sues are hidden away in the EEA Commission (EMS-utvalget) of the Norwegian Parliament. The meetings in the committee are confidential, and other membe rs are rarely included. A third reason is that the majority of the parliame ntarians do not want to focus on the EEA, since they fear this will undermi ne the agreement. Besides, several politicians stress the point that the po sitive aspects of the agreement, like access to the EU market, have a heavi er weight than the negative ones. Our conclusion is that the EEA leaves little space for parliamentarian infl uence, and that the Storting to a minor extent is involved in the European political process. Accordingly, a new debate about the European Union is ne cessary. However, it might be wise to wait until we know more about the fun ction of the EMU and after the question about EU's eastward expansion has r eached a settlement.