While the European Commissioner for Justice, Michael McGrath, confirmed on Monday 19 January that the Commission will present a legislative proposal in March on the future ‘28th regime’ possibly on 18 March, consisting of a single set of rules applicable throughout the EU for setting up a business, the European Parliament confirmed in plenary on Tuesday 20 January the position put forward by the German MEP René Repasi (S&D) in the ITRE Committee on 11 December (see EUROPE 13772/16).
By 492 votes to 144, with 28 abstentions, it reiterated its support for this project for a unified, fully digital European company, in the form of a so-called maximum harmonisation directive. While a regulation was the rapporteur’s preferred option, the fact that unanimity would be required in this context convinced him to opt for this directive, the German MEP explained at a press conference.
Under the arrangements envisaged in the own-initiative report, which were not amended in plenary, the Statute for a Unified European Company (S.EU or ‘Societas Europaea Unificata’) would apply to non-listed limited liability companies based in one of the 27 Member States.
Aimed more at startups, scaleups and SMEs, this scheme would enable an S.EU to be registered entirely digitally within 48 hours, with a minimum paid-up capital requirement of a symbolic one euro.
The European Parliament also wants to make it easier for SMEs to invest and to attract and retain top talent through employee share ownership schemes and stock option plans for employees.
In addition, S.EUs should have access to specialised and accelerated dispute resolution mechanisms that could be conducted in English.
According to Valérie Hayer, President of Renew Europe, this new status would make it possible to avoid “aberrations”, such as “a German company today doing business more easily in Chicago than in Prague or Nice”.
For Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, companies will be able to operate much more easily in all Member States, she stressed in Davos on 20 January. “We need a system that allows companies to do business and raise funds seamlessly across Europe, as easily as in uniform markets such as the United States or China”.
In any case, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) welcomed the fact that the report highlights the potential risks of this new status for workers’ rights and recognises particularly “where it could be used by unscrupulous employers to undermine national labour law systems, collective bargaining and worker board-level representation frameworks”.
It calls on the Commission “to rethink (its) approach following the European Parliament’s important recognition of the serious challenges and risks it presents”.
In his report, René Repasi explains that he is “mindful of the risk that a 28th regime could enable the circumvention of mandatory domestic protections for workers, their representatives and trade unions, and other vulnerable parties (and) that the 28th regime must under no circumstances become a vehicle to undermine, reduce, weaken or circumvent existing levels of protection at Union or national level”.
Link to the adopted text: https://aeur.eu/f/kbb (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)