Which convention founded the European Free Trade Association in 1960?

The Stockholm Convention founded the European Free Trade Association in 1960.

Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom signed the convention in Stockholm on 4 January 1960. EFTA began operations later that year as an alternative form of European economic cooperation for countries that were not joining the European Economic Community.

Unlike the EEC, EFTA was designed primarily as a free-trade area rather than a customs union. Its members removed tariffs on industrial goods traded among themselves while retaining their own external trade policies toward non-members.

The convention’s membership later changed substantially. Denmark and the United Kingdom left EFTA in 1973 when they joined the European Communities, and Portugal left in 1986. Today, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland are EFTA members. The Stockholm Convention should not be confused with the later Vaduz Convention, which amended the organization’s founding framework in 2001.