Brussels, 13/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - The spokesperson for Charlie McCreevy, the European Commissioner for the internal market admitted that the Commission's services were examining the structure of certain cooperative banks in Italy. He indicated that it had not yet been decided whter a formal stage in the study would take place as the Commission's services were just in a “preliminary phase”. In this dossier, the “one shareholder one vote” rule in force in the Italian cooperative banking system is being questioned. It confers identical weight in decision making no matter how much market share the shareholder has in the cooperative bank. The commission underlines that this is a very efficient defence mechanism.
Charlie McCreevy's spokesperson also denied that a Commission letter to the People's Bank of Lodi was being prepared. This Italian cooperative bank is the main shareholders in the Antonveneta Bank, which is currently the target of a take over bid by Dutch bank ABN Amro (see other article).