Abstract

Professor Carl Baudenbacher was sworn in as Judge of the EFTA Court on 6 September 1995 and became its President on 15 January 2003. During his more than twenty-two and a half years at the Court he has not spared any efforts always to secure the highest quality and standard in the Court’s work. Thanks to Carl’s very personal engagement and devotion to the objectives of the EEA Agreement, the Court has been extremely successful, over all these years, through the exercise of its crucial judicial activity in maintaining the credibility both of the EFTA pillar in the EEA as well as of the EEA as a whole. It is with the greatest admiration and humility that in honour of my great friend Carl Baudenbacher I address an issue that is at the very core of the EEA but so far does not seem to have attracted the attention it deserves in the ongoing Brexit negotiations.