Centre on the Europeanization of Norwegian Law - Understanding EEA Law as an integral part of Norwegian Law

Why is the law of the European Economic Area (EEA), which binds Norway to the EU’s internal market, so difficult for Norwegian lawyers to understand? And how can those responsible for making and applying Norwegian law better adapt to the obligations flowing from EEA law? These are the main challenges to be addressed by the work carried out at the Centre on the Europeanisation of Norwegian Law (CENTENOL). The interdisciplinary law-in-context research conducted at CENTENOL will be channeled through four interconnected work packages, focusing on how the free movement rights under EEA law impact on Norwegian social security, immigration, labour law, and public administrative law more generally. The main goal of CENTENOL is to strengthen legal research and teaching by raising awareness of the potential and actual effects that EEA law and methodology has in these fields, thereby ensuring that all stakeholders – Norwegian lawyers, law students, judges, academics, local and national lawmakers and the public administration – are better equipped to deal with such issues in the future. CENTENOL is a national and international cooperative venture, based around a research hub located at the University of Bergen’s Faculty of Law. The research carried out at CENTENOL will develop new knowledge beyond existing national and international legal research on EEA law and its impact on Norwegian law, particularly through its use of social scientific and international comparative perspectives. The research findings will further contribute to informing and developing legal education in Norway, providing significant advancements beneficial to all legal educational providers in Norway, thereby contributing to a truly national lift. Through its combined research and teaching activities, active engagement of project stakeholders and open and public dissemination of its findings, CENTENOL will play a key role in national competence-building on the Europeanisation of Norwegian law. Web: https://www.uib.no/en/centenol

The Centre on the Europeanization of Norwegian Law (CENTENOL) will meet the need to expand knowledge about the impact of European Economic Area (EEA) law on Norwegian law and public administration. CENTENOL will challenge and expand the current knowledge base through research, communication, teaching and network activities, enabling Norwegian lawyers and public officials to better understand EEA law and its implications for Norwegian law and administration. CENTENOL’s primary objective is to generate new knowledge and strengthen legal research and teaching on the content, impact and integration of EEA free movement law both generally and more specifically in relation to various fields of Norwegian national law. The selected fields of study are social security law, immigration law and employment/labour law, and the secondary objectives of the Centre will be to: 1) Increase research output on legal issues concerning the Europeanisation of Norwegian law. 2) Build an open access knowledge base. 3) Contribute to ongoing efforts at the Centre’s Norwegian partners to build expertise and further integrate EEA law issues into the main curriculum of legal studies. Through the many planned activities and publications during the lifetime of the Centre, CENTENOL will contribute to building a solid knowledge base on how EEA free movement rights and duties impact on various fields of Norwegian law. In addition to scientific dissemination and its contribution to legal education, the Centre will focus on both general and user-oriented dissemination for the benefit of both the Norwegian legal community and society at large. CENTENOL will pursue formalised cooperative ventures with other research groups and institutions both nationally and internationally to this end. The Centre will thereby be well-placed to generate new knowledge on the impact of EEA law on Norwegian law – both in the specific branches of law studied, and beyond.