A timeline of freedom of movement in the European Economic Area

The European Economic Area (EEA) provides a common market for goods, labour, services, and capital. Promoting integration between countries through the free movement of labour, or more generally persons, pre-dates the previous forms of the EEA. However, during the Southern and Eastern Expansions of the European Union, there have been transition agreements on persons, designed to restrict immigration. Opening up labour markets to the new member states with significantly lower GDP per capita than existing states, has been contentious. This is why the use of transition agreements have permitted periods which existing members can limit immigration. Not all existing member states impose restrictions, and during the Eastern Enlargements, the restrictions were imposed for varying lengths of time by different existing members up to a maximum of seven years. During the transition agreement, the economies of new members and existing members can converge, which is ultimately designed to limit the pull factor of migration. In this note, we provide a concise resource of the timeline of the expansion of full free movement of persons for countries in the EEA and Switzerland.

In this research we answer: What year were citizens of the countries within the European Economic Area (EEA) able to move to another country in the EEA without any restrictions? Immigration is a controversial topic in most developed economies, but the EEA is a unique group of countries which offers its citizens the ability to live and work anywhere in its member countries. Political issues have risen when there are new members who have significantly lower GDP per capita than existing member states. To satisfy some of the existing members, they can limit migration from the new members for up to seven years. This research brings together many sources to detail when restrictions were lifted if this differed to the country joining the EU or EEA.