Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-19-Speech-1-099"
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"en.20040419.8.1-099"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission presented the communication on modernising company law and enhancing corporate governance in the European Union to the
Council and the European Parliament. This communication responds to the report of 4 November 2002 of the High Level Group of Company Law Experts, which Commissioner Bolkestein appointed for the purpose of, precisely, recommending a modern regulatory framework for company law in Europe.
The communication sets out the major political objectives that should guide all our future initiatives. It includes an action plan which lays down a timescale for a series of instruments, regulatory or otherwise, intended to be set up in the short, medium and long term, together with a grid indicating the priority of the measures themselves. In this proposal, the Commission has taken into account the need to respect the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, basing its own regulatory approach on gradual application, without however, losing sight of regulatory developments at international level.
There are two fundamental objectives sought by the Commission by reforming company law in Europe: strengthening shareholders’ rights and third parties’ protection; fostering efficiency and competitiveness of businesses.
The main grounds underlying this initiative can be distinguished as the establishment of a more homogenous reference framework for company law in order to facilitate cross-border establishment and restructuring; the creation of conditions to prevent a repetition of recent corporate scandals – among which the
scandal in my country stands out owing to its size – the consequences of which have severely affected millions of people’s livelihoods, pensions, jobs, savings and investments; making the most of the advantages offered by the internal market.
In order to realise the first objective proposed by the action plan, it is essential to provide an effective, up-to-date system to protect shareholders and their rights. We must also take into due consideration the position of certain third parties, who are particularly qualified in terms of their interests: creditors and workers. From this point of view, the Commission’s approach to the issue of governance seems simplistic and inadequate. Corporate governance is presented as a problem confined solely to relations between shareholders and management, as if a business were a body solely concerned with shareholders’ interests. In this way it is describing a virtual company, without giving due importance to workers and without more general responsibilities towards other categories of parties with an interest in the life of the company itself such as, for example, creditors and other stakeholders.
With regard to the second objective, competitiveness of businesses may be fostered by various elements, including the inevitable existence of an appropriate regulatory framework for company law, firmly balanced between national and Community measures. I believe that the challenge that we must meet today is to aim to bring out the distinctive, characteristic features of European capitalism in the age of globalisation. In other words, we need to ascertain whether there is a true European model, which differs significantly from the North American model, not because it corresponds with and emerges from a framework of challenges and issues other than those which concern everyone in a context of economic globalisation, but because it considers social consequences and implications, making it more balanced and more human: a model, therefore, which seeks to conceive of the essential core of the corporate model, represented by a company’s interests, not just as the common interest of members and shareholders but as the interest of the company itself, a company which, as an independent economic operator, is also responsible for the specific interests of all parties outside and within the company itself. These include employees, customers, suppliers, creditors, the public administration, in its capacity as distributor of welfare and tax revenue, and the entire civil society, which is structurally connected, by means of the general and common interest, to the company’s prosperity and continuity.
One final comment of a general nature: we need to obtain the correct balance between self-regulation and legislative regulation when the European governance framework is formulated. Today there is a widespread tendency to fill regulatory gaps with self-regulation codes. This is positive but it does not go far enough. We need to maintain a system of legally binding rules, equipped with effective sanctions, applied by public bodies entrusted with the tasks of guidance and monitoring. The aim must be precisely to globalise governance rules and to place the public supervisory authorities into a network.
On this basis, we have focused our attention on certain key points, which I will just mention: transparency and shareholders’ rights, role of institutional investors, promotion of the role of independent directors, the specific issue of corporate pyramids, rights of workers as particularly qualified creditors of the company and the centrality of a system of public oversight of audits."@en1
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