European Free Trade Association Surveillance Authority
The EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) has powers that are similar to those of the European Commission, but the two institutions oversee the application of the same laws in different parts of the EEA.
[1] ESA's primary task is to ensure that relevant EU law is properly transposed and enforced by the EEA EFTA States - Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Private persons, NGOs and companies may lodge complaints with ESA against Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway if they consider national legislation or administrative measures to be incompatible with a provision or principle of EEA law.
[4] ESA monitors State aid granted by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway in order to allow fair competition and an open internal market in the European Economic Area.
State aid is public support to commercial activities and can take many forms, for example cash grants, tax breaks or favourable loans.
As a rule, the EEA Agreement prohibits State aid to prevent negative impacts on trade, but exceptions are made for certain purposes such as environmental protection, regional support and research, innovation and development.
Competition law enables markets to work effectively for the benefit of the customer and prohibits anticompetitive coordination between companies, such as agreeing to fix prices or refrain from competing head-on.
In this regard, ESA enjoys wide powers of investigation and may impose fines of up to 10% of global turnover on companies that breach the competition rules.
ESA has the powers to adopt certain defined decisions that are legally binding on national supervisory authorities and market operators (including credit institutions, insurance companies and investment firms) established in the EFTA States.
[8] ESA is also responsible for monitoring implementation and application of EEA legislation on food and feed, animal health and welfare by Iceland and Norway.
Compliance is partly ensured through audits of the national controls systems, which enables ESA to assess Iceland's and Norway's legislation in these fields.
The legislation in this sector is characterized by its dynamic nature and is linked to, for example, emerging issues relating to animal and public health such as outbreaks of infectious diseases.
