In February 1992, in an article published in the Federalist monthly journal Crocodile as the Treaty on European Union is signed in Maastricht, Franz Blankart, State Secretary in the Swiss Confederation, emphasises the differences between Politcal Union, Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the European Economic Area (EEA).
In June 1990, in an article in the Portuguese magazine Cadernos de Economia, Luís Mira Amaral, Portuguese Minister for Industry and Energy, analyses the prospects for Portuguese industry in the future European Economic Space (EES), later to become the European Economic Area (EEA).
On 29 October 1990, during the state visit to Portugal by Mauno Koivisto, President of the Republic of Finland, Mário Soares, President of the Portuguese Republic, delivers an address at the Ajuda Palace in Lisbon in which he points out the benefits of a large European Economic Space (EES), later to become the European Economic Area (EEA), involving the Member States of the European Economic Community (EEC) and those of the European Free Trade Area (EFTA).
In summer 1990, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ongoing transformations in Eastern Europe, the monthly publication EFTA Bulletin welcomes the political impact of the establishment of the European Economic Space (EES), later to become the European Economic Area (EEA), as a prelude to a new architecture in Europe.
On 24 October 1991, Ulf Dinkelspiel, Swedish Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade, gives a parliamentary briefing in which he explains the importance for Sweden of the establishment of the European Economic Area (EEA).
At the joint EFTA–EC ministerial meeting held on 2 February 1988, Pertti Salolainen, Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade and Chairman of the EFTA Council, discusses the strengthened cooperation between the two regional European groups and the gradual development of a European Economic Space.
On 21 February 1995, Martti Ahtisaari, President of the Republic of Finland, delivers an address in Paris on Finland’s role in the enlarged European Union.
In 1995, in an interview for the French journal Politique Internationale, Martti Ahtisaari, President of the Republic of Finland, outlines the consequences of his country’s accession to the European Union in the area of foreign policy.
