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Industrial Relations in Europe 2012 - European Commission - Europa

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should be amended; c) other non-legislative measures at EU level would merit consideration<br />

and d) they would <strong>in</strong>itiate a negotiation under Article 155 TFEU.<br />

On the employers' side, virtually all the respondents consider that a review of the SE Directive<br />

is not advisable or necessary despite acknowledg<strong>in</strong>g that the procedure for employee<br />

<strong>in</strong>volvement might be cumbersome. They do not see that there is a lack of legal certa<strong>in</strong>ty nor<br />

a risk that the SE legal form is used to weaken employees' <strong>in</strong>volvement rights. On the<br />

employees' side, the respondents consider that the complexity of the procedure is not a<br />

problematic area of the SE Directive, i.e. they do not see any need for simplification.<br />

Nevertheless, they see a risk that the SE legal form may be used to weaken employees'<br />

<strong>in</strong>volvement rights.<br />

<strong>Europe</strong>an Private Company Statute<br />

The <strong>Commission</strong> adopted on 25 June 2008 a proposal 122 for a <strong>Europe</strong>an Private Company<br />

(SPE) Statute, which has been discussed <strong>in</strong> the Council without any f<strong>in</strong>al outcome. Member<br />

States cannot agree notably on allow<strong>in</strong>g SPEs to separate their registered office and<br />

headquarters and the regime for employee participation. For this reason, the <strong>Commission</strong><br />

<strong>in</strong>cluded <strong>in</strong> its consultation on the future of <strong>Europe</strong>an Company Law questions relat<strong>in</strong>g to<br />

next steps regard<strong>in</strong>g the SPE statute 123 . This consultation was closed on 14 May <strong>2012</strong>.<br />

Transnational company agreements<br />

Transnational company agreements have ga<strong>in</strong>ed significance over the decade s<strong>in</strong>ce the first<br />

<strong>in</strong>itiatives <strong>in</strong> 2000. By early <strong>2012</strong>, 224 such agreements were recorded <strong>in</strong> 144 companies,<br />

mostly headquartered <strong>in</strong> <strong>Europe</strong>, cover<strong>in</strong>g over 10 million employees.<br />

Follow<strong>in</strong>g its 2008 Staff Work<strong>in</strong>g Document 124 , the <strong>Commission</strong> set up an expert group on<br />

transnational company agreements, the task of which was to monitor developments and<br />

exchange <strong>in</strong>formation on how to support the process underway. 125 The expert group, br<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g<br />

together experts from Member States and the EU social partners, academics and researchers,<br />

representatives of <strong>Europe</strong>an <strong>in</strong>stitutions and the International Labour Organization as well as<br />

company actors, held several meet<strong>in</strong>gs between 2009 and 2011.<br />

The expert group issued a report <strong>in</strong> early <strong>2012</strong>, which conta<strong>in</strong>s a wealth of <strong>in</strong>formation on the<br />

phenomenon of transnational company agreements <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g concrete examples, reviews the<br />

ma<strong>in</strong> open issues and sets out options to address them.<br />

122 http://ec.europa.eu/<strong>in</strong>ternal_market/company/epc/<strong>in</strong>dex_en.htm<br />

123 http://ec.europa.eu/<strong>in</strong>ternal_market/consultations/docs/<strong>2012</strong>/companylaw/questionnaire_en.pdf<br />

124 On "The role of transnational company agreements <strong>in</strong> the context of <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>ternational <strong>in</strong>tegration"<br />

125 The documents emanat<strong>in</strong>g from the work of the expert group as well as related documents can be accessed<br />

under: http://ec.europa.eu/social/ma<strong>in</strong>.jsp?catId=707&langId=en&<strong>in</strong>tPageId=214<br />

315

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