21. Recalls that the Icesave dispute remains unresolved at this stage; stresses that the Icesave issue must be resolved outside the accession negotiations and must not be an obstacle in the way of Iceland's accession process; takes note of EFTA's Surveillance Authority decision to refer the ‘Icesave’ case to the EEA Court and of the ruling of the Icelandic Supreme Court upholding the Emergency Act of 6 October 2008; appreciates the continuous commitment of the Icelandic authorities to resolve this dispute and welcomes the first partial payments to priority creditors in the winding-up of Landsbanki Íslands hf, estimated to be close to ...[+++]one-third of the recognised priority claims;

During that period, the overall financial contribution from the EEA EFTA States was EUR 1.467 billion, allocated partly through a multilateral EEA financial mechanism to the EEA Agreement, financed by all three EEA EFTA States, and partly through a bilateral Norwegian financial mechanism, financed exclusively by Norway.

The EFTA Surveillance Authority supervises the implementation of the EEA relevant acquis into the legislation of the EEA EFTA MS. It has also the competence to initiate infringement proceedings at the EFTA Court which is the judicial authority of the EEA.

Born in 1952, graduate of the Helsinki School of Economics and of the faculty of law of the University of Helsinki; legal secretary at the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland; general secretary to the committee for reform of legal protection in public administration; principal administrator at the Supreme Administrative Court; general secretary to the committee for reform of administrative litigation, counsellor in the legislative department of the Ministry of Justice; Assistant Registrar to the EFTA Court; legal secretary at the Court of Justice of the European Communities; judge at the Supreme Administrative Court (1998 to 2005); member of the Asylum Board; vice-president of the committee on the development of th ...[+++]e Finnish courts.

- the decision of the Joint Committee to add the Committee for Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal data to the list of Protocol 37 is being prepared in order to allow for EEA/EFTA participation in the interests of the good functioning of the agreement; -the EEA Council notes the participation of EEA/EFTA in the committees established in framework of programmes in which they participate like MEDIA II, INFO 2000 and in the area of Education; -the EEA Council notes EEA/EFTA participation in the Advisory Committee on the Internal market is being favourably considered; -the EEA Council also notes that EEA ...[+++]/EFTA participation as observers to the Commission's Advisory Committee to Cancer Prevention has been agreed; -noted the ongoing negotiations between the EEA/EFTA States and Canada, Australia and New Zealand of parallel Mutual Recognition Agreements on Conformity Assessment equivalent to those negotiated between the Community and those countries; the EEA Council welcomed the readiness of the EEA/EFTA States to begin parallel negotiations with those countries in Central and Eastern Europe with which the Community intends to conclude European Conformity Assessment Agreements and set up special administrative structures; while referring to the importance of the Commission's Action Plan for the Single Market underlined its general relevance to the EEA Agreement and appreciated the joint intention to cooperate on relevant projects resulting from the Action Plan; welcomed that in a spirit of constructive cooperation a solution to the salmon issue has been found in consultations between the Commission and Norway ; 5. The EEA Council noted the importance of the proposed European Parliament and Council directive on common rules for the internal market in natural gas for the supply and utilization of natural gas within the EEA.

This objective will be attained through the inclusion in the Agreement of rules applicable in the Community and through the introduction of an effective surveillance system under which the EFTA countries will establish a structure similar to the Community structure, namely an EFTA Surveillance Authority responsible for surveying application of the EEA rules in the EFTA countries and an EFTA Court which will be responsible for judicial control.