Brussels, 01/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) essentially shares the European Parliament's position on the Directive concerning public bids. It considers that the management committee of the company under attack must: a) have the possibility of taking defensive measures, after consultation with its shareholders and with the workers' representatives; b) define its attitude taking into consideration the interests of the company "as a whole", that is, bearing in mind the interests not only of shareholders but also of workers, if not the general public. ETUC also attributes priority importance to worker information and consultation, which is inevitable for successful acquisition of a company.
EUROPE recalls that the directive in question is the subject of conciliation procedure between the Council and the Parliament (which has distanced itself from the Council "common position" with respect to certain provisions, mainly those concerning defence measures that may be taken by the company's management under hostile bidding: see EUROPE of 31 May, p.7). A last conciliation meeting will be held on Tuesday evening, 5 June, in Luxembourg. In the event of failure, the current project will become obsolete and the procedure will begin again from scratch.