Norway’s Patchwork of Agreements with the EU: Challenges to ‘the Norway Model’ brought about by the EU’s Strategic Rethink of the Internal Market: CELS Lunchtime Seminar
Cambridge Centre for European Legal Studies (CELS) Podcast
Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge
0.0 • 0 Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
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Summary
Speaker: Professor Halvard Haukeland Fredriksen, UIB, Norway
Biography: Halvard Haukeland Fredriksen is professor of European law at the University of Bergen, Norway. Besides his Norwegian law degree, he holds the degrees of Mag.Jur. and Dr.Jur. from the University of Göttingen (Germany) as well as a PhD from the University of Bergen. Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Co-Director of the Bergen Centre of the Europeanization of Norwegian law. Editor-in-chief of the Norwegian Law Journal. Member of the 2022-2024 ‘EEA Review Committee’ that assed Norway’s current affiliation to the European Union.
Abstract: For more than three decades, the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA) has integrated Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway into the better part of the EU internal market. Over the years, the Agreement has been supplemented by numerous other agreements between Norway and the EU, creating a complex patchwork of agreements commonly referred to as ‘the Norway model’. Notwithstanding the model’s democratic problems, the general view in Norway is that it has worked well as a compromise between those in favour of membership of the Union and those very much opposed to this idea. However, the EU’s strive for ‘strategic autonomy’ in the current geopolitical situation makes it more complicated to remain part of the internal market without being part of the customs union and the common commercial policy. The seminar will discuss the legal challenges confronting ‘the Norway model’ as well as possible remedies.
For more information see:
https://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/weekly-seminar-series
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's a great pleasure to introduce Professor Albert Frederiksen and I'm going to greet off a very impressive list of accolades here. |
| 0:11.0 | So Professor Fredrickson is a professor of European law university in Norway and he holds several degrees. Most importantly, at the apart German, he holds a degree from the University of Göttingen. It's very happy to make me that. I'm going to ignore the other degrees that are at development. I didn't notice that because he had two doctorates, then that would make you |
| 0:39.0 | Dr. Doctor, Professor Dr. Doctor, which the Germanian also loves. And then Perven Fission |
| 0:46.0 | would also say it's a member of the Louisiana Academy of Arts Sciences and Letters, |
| 0:51.8 | co-director of the American Center for the Europeanization of Norwegian law, |
| 0:58.7 | editor-in-chief of the Norwegian Law Journal, and the number of the 2022-24 review committee, |
| 1:07.9 | EEO committee that accepts Weirwe is current affiliation to the union union. |
| 1:13.6 | Good. And with that, also from my side, thank you very much for being here. |
| 1:19.6 | And it's wonderful also that this is sort of the beginning of a longer stay. |
| 1:22.6 | It was a week until, I think just the end of March. |
| 1:26.6 | So in case the Q&As go on and on, don't worry, there's |
| 1:30.7 | several weeks. Right. Thank you very much. And over to you. Thank you. Thanks for the |
| 1:36.9 | introduction and thanks for the invitation. It's great to be here. From a very selfish perspective, |
| 1:43.3 | Brexit has increased the interest, both in the UK and the EU |
| 1:47.0 | for the perspectives of the remaining EFTA states on their relations with the European Union, |
| 1:52.0 | which is good for us. It's perhaps the only good thing that came out of Brexit. |
| 1:57.0 | My plan today is to offer a very brief introduction to what is sometimes referred to as the Norway model, |
| 2:05.6 | although it's neither exclusively Norwegian nor really a model in the proper sense of that word. |
| 2:13.6 | I shall then try to explain why external developments and the EU's attempts to protect its internal |
| 2:21.7 | market causes problems for this Norway model. |
| 2:26.6 | A key question as indicated on my very first slide is whether it is possible in today's |
| 2:32.3 | world to remain fully integrated in the internal market without joining |
... |
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