Brussels, 04/03/2010
More than 80 employee board members from some 10 different Member States (AT, BE, DK, FR, DE, IT, NL, NO, PL, UK) are today spreading employee board level representation throughout Europe, and in at least 54 SEs agreements on information and consultation have been concluded. However, most SE’s are not ‘normal’ companies. The majority of them are SEs without any employees (‘empty SEs’) and/or do not even have a specific business purpose (‘shelf SEs’). Only one quarter of the total SE number (131) are today considered “normal SEs” in the sense that they have both employees and business activities.
“This is the reason the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) demands that the new responsible Commissioner reflect on this issue in the upcoming review of the SE regulation, and that he pinpoint ways to close this loophole”, says Catelene Passchier, ETUC Confederal Secretary.
More importantly, the positive experiences with employee involvement in “normal” SEs, show in ETUC’s view the way forward: more democracy at the workplace makes the European Internal Market competitive in a socially responsible way, and therefore strong guarantees on worker participation should be a natural ingredient of any future initiatives regarding European Company Law.
The first opportunity will be the forthcoming review of the SE regulation, to take place later this year. It is also essential to ensure that the worker participation standard set by the SE Directive is not lowered in any other upcoming EU legislation in the field of company law, such as the recent proposals for a possible European Private Company statute.
Further information on the SE via the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI):
- SE Facts and Figures – A set of slides with key data on the SE
- www.worker-participation.eu - The gateway to information on worker participation in Europe
- http://www.worker-participation.eu/European-Company/SE-COMPANIES-News/500-active-European-Companies-SE