Brussels, 19/10/2004
From the Trade Union point of view, this is one of the main results of the Conference on “European Corporate Governance”, on 18th October 2004, held by the Dutch EU Presidency.
Commissioner Frits Bolkenstein stressed that businesses with sound corporate governance perform better and can contribute to meet the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy.
Reiner Hoffmann, Deputy General Secretary of the ETUC, welcomed this view but underlined that corporate governance also has to be committed to social and environmental goals.
The involvement of workers' representatives is crucial in this respect. This has been recognised by the European Commission, and has been clearly demonstrated by the composition of the newly established “European Corporate Governance Forum”, which includes workers' representatives.
The ETUC shares the opinion of the European Commission that for the time being a European Corporate governance Codex is not necessary since the existing corporate governance codex at national level have shown more convergence. The differences are mainly generated from the existing National Company Law. Moreover, the SE-Legislation, including the EU Directive on Workers' participation, which came into force on 8th October, is an example of a modern and flexible company law. It provides a legal structure to organise a stock-listed company with one single corporate governance across Europe. ETUC will closely follow initial developments with this system and would like to encourage the new forum to further improve corporate governance at European level.