Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-15-Speech-1-064"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20031215.7.1-064"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
". Mr President, last October, I presented to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market the new Commission proposal for a takeover bids directive. That proposal was aimed primarily at meeting the Parliament's criticism that the earlier proposal had not gone far enough in establishing a level playing field.
That proposal has been discussed and amended by Member States and, on 27 November 2003, the Competitiveness Council adopted a general orientation on a compromise text presented by the Italian presidency. On the same day, Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market adopted Mr Lehne's report, based on the same compromise text.
At this point, I would like to express my surprise about all the changes in this report between the vote of the Legal Affairs Committee and the plenary session. The proposal now on the table is based on the text, dated 7 May 2003, that was worked on during the Greek presidency including multiple voting rights in the scope of the breakthrough and draws on the suggestion put forward by the Portuguese delegation to introduce options for Member States and for companies in the application of Articles 9 and 11.
I can only repeat here what I already said in the Council. Articles 9 and 11 are crucial elements of this proposal. Article 9 contains the basic principle that the board of an offeree company may only take defensive measures after prior consultation of the general meeting of shareholders. Article 11 makes it possible for an offeror who has acquired 75% of the capital to break through certain defensive mechanisms set up by the offeree company. I indicated quite clearly during the discussions that I would not accept as a compromise the deletion of those Articles. Nor can I accept an arrangement whereby those Articles are to be made optional. That will not achieve the harmonisation that the Commission intended when it tabled this proposal. Moreover, it goes back on the level of harmonisation that we agreed last time, before Parliament objected to the first proposal on the grounds that it did not go far enough in establishing a level playing field. At the moment no level playing field whatsoever is established.
Therefore, you will not be surprised that I cannot accept Amendment 5 or Amendment 21, which introduce these optional arrangements. I have some difficulties as well with Amendment No 4 and Amendment No 20, last paragraph, concerning 'special rights'. This confuses rights in private law and those in public law, which are not covered by the directive.
I know that time is running out and that we have already spent a great deal of time discussing this proposal. However, I do not think that we are sending the right message to the markets by adopting the proposal in its current form. Is it really a worthwhile contribution to our project which seeks to build the most competitive market in the world by 2010? I sincerely hope that we can do better, even if we need more time."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples