Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-02-13-Speech-1-078-000"
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"en.20120213.16.1-078-000"2
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".
Mr President, firstly, I note that my microphone button is clearly working, so I have the benefit of freedom of speech.
It is quite clear that better access to commercial registers and better interconnection of commercial registers are of great importance and are highly desirable. The importance of these commercial registers for legal transactions and the economy is also obvious. The first Companies Directive dealing with the establishment of commercial registers and their content was adopted as far back as 1968. This is being amended here, along with the directives on branches and on mergers.
Commercial registers have been required to be kept electronically since 2007. It is evident, however, that the potential of this electronic register-keeping can only be fully exploited if, rather than sending stacks of files all over the place, communication between the registers also takes place electronically, if the registers are also accessible to outsiders, and finally – and very importantly – if everyone is on board, not just a few. We have to distinguish between, on the one hand, communication between the registers themselves – particularly main offices and branches – and, on the other hand, cross-border access by citizens, companies and advisers.
Parliament welcomed the Commission’s initiative from the start, and I can state that during the consultations agreement was reached between the Commission, the Council and Parliament on all the matters of substance. In this regard I should like to extend my thanks to all the representatives of the political groups, but also to the Commission, which contributed to this by tabling a very good proposal. I would like to thank not only the Danish Presidency, but also and above all the Polish Presidency, which put a great deal of effort into the details and pushed things forward.
I would like to mention briefly a few key points. A platform is being created which can be accessed via the e-Justice Portal. Although it is not necessary for the Commission to run the platform itself, it was important to us that the Commission be responsible for it in law – and that is something we have achieved. The registers are too sensitive and too important to be simply handed over wholesale to private institutions. I would like to point out that in future there will be a core of information that is available in all the official languages at no cost; that companies will not be burdened with excessive administration, such as for setting up identifiers; that data protection has been ensured; and that, in future, the registers will be brought up to date much more quickly.
Commercial registers are kept at national and regional level, and will remain so. That will still be the case. We are merely regulating access and communication between the registers. The registers vary in standard, and unfortunately they also vary in reliability. A particularly important factor, however, is that the legal significance of the content of the registers differs from one Member State to another. This is a potential source of serious misunderstandings, particularly for inexperienced users. Reference must therefore be made to this when presenting the data, and information must be made available.
Many of the technical details have yet to be clarified before the whole thing can be up and running. Since the registers are, after all, kept by the Member States, Parliament has stated that it is happy for these technical details to be decided to a certain extent by the Commission and the Member States within the framework of implementing provisions through learning by doing. All we can do here today is to establish the legal basis for setting up the whole thing and ensure that all the Member States have to participate, which was not the case previously.
There remains a great deal of work to be done as regards the practicalities. I would like to see this working in reality as soon as possible, which would represent considerable progress in the internal market. I wish the initiative every success."@en1
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