What does EEA and CH stand for?
 

I just got back from Europe and the passport control points had a line for "EU, EEA and CH" I know what EU is but what are the other two.

Thanks in advance. :)

EEA - European Economic Area (those coutries who don't have EU membership but have many of the same benefits - namely Norway and Switzerland)

CH - Switzerland

CH stands for "Confederatio Helveticae" which is latin for 'The swiss confedation" (note the plural use of the word Swiss). It is the official (if there is such a thing) name of Switzerland. You'll notice Swiss cars bear the emblem "CH" on the rear to designate them as swiss on the road.

Alex

Zermatt. My kind of place. I also like Vaduz.

M8

Not to mention that Swiss Internet domains end in .ch :)

As you know, EU is European Union. So, that means all EU members.
EEA is European Economic Area. It's composed of EU members plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
CH means Switzerland. It stands for Confoederatio Helvetica (Latin for Swiss Confederation). Because Switzerland has 4 official languages, it use the Latin name as language-neutral option. Thus, CH and CHE became the country code for Switzerland (United States has US/USA, Germany DE/DEU, France FR/FRA, etc.)

So why do citizens from these countries have special lanes? That's because in EU treaty, member states citizens are free to move and live within the Union territories (much like being in a single country). The EEA also has similar arrangement that entitles the same freedom. For Switzerland, they have a separate bilateral agreement for exactly that. That's why EU/EEA/CH citizens are welcome to use that special lane and we can be sure that they have a much easier time clearing the immigration than others.


Maybe a mistake in typing, but Switzerland is not formally part of EEA. However, it is true that Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein form the EFTA (European Free Trade Area).


CH stands for "Confoederatio Helvetica" and the "Helvetica" (meaning: Swiss) is definitely not in the plural form (for linguistic reasons). IDK from where you're told about the plural form, but that's incorrect (and ungrammatical).

evanc912, welcome to FlyerTalk!
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