The Lenoir report on the SE is positive. The report by Noëlle Lenoir, the former French minister for European affairs, on the European company (SE, Societas Europaea) cast a frankly optimistic eye on this achievement of the EU. What we had read previously told the story of a semi-failure: companies were not really interested, only a very small number of SEs were created, the advantages were not entirely clear. For Ms Lenoir, on the other hand, the experience is very much a positive one: the existing SEs are satisfied and, with a few statute changes, the SE is now, more than ever, the “formula of the future”. The report had been commissioned of her by the French minister for justice, Pascal Clément, ahead of the review of the statutes of the SE (the European Commission will make proposals in 2009), and it was published this Monday afternoon.
The European Company, as we know, came into being in 2001, after some 30 years of intense Community debates, and the member states transposed its statutes into national law over the next few years. As of 1 March 2007, there are 70 SEs in existence and, according to Ms Lenoir, there are plenty more being set up. She referred to the examples of the German chemicals group BASF, the French reinsurance group SCOR and the Scandinavian bank Nordea.
Ms Lenoir, who is well-known in European circles for her past and current work, lays emphasis on both the political significance and practical advantages of the SE, which confers a genuine “European citizenship” on businesses; the statutes provide a company with the guaranteed possibility of cross-border mergers and the ability to transfer its headquarters from one member state to another, and it also responds to a social model of employee involvement (which, as we know, is gradually taking on more and more importance). The SE also has the advantage of “fiscal neutrality”, the significance and functioning of which are explained in detail.
Amendments and conclusions. Ms Lenoir thus sums up the results of investigations carried out among a number of SEs (our translation): “the procedure involved in constituting a company as an SE is not without its difficulties and complexities, but the advantages of the statute far outweigh these practical difficulties. The experiences of Allianz (a German insurance company), the Finnish IT company Elcoteq, and the example of the largest construction company in Austria, Strabag, in particular, speak volumes” (their statements are included in the annex). The last part of the report contains “proposals for the next stage”, which aim in particular to extend the scope of application of the SE, to facilitate recourse to savings and promote the harmonisation of the corporate tax base. The conclusions are general in nature; they reaffirm the triple role of the company (production site, a tool to add value to shareholders' funding, a “human community”) and support the idea of global champions for the EU, stressing that the example of Airbus “justifies the EU in its encouragement and promotion of the Community-level activities of its companies, by providing a legally appropriate environment”.
A formula for Airbus ? Ms Lenoir's comments concerning Airbus put me in mind of the press release issued by the Socialist group of the EP on 14 March, which ends with the words: “the intergovernmental system on which the Airbus project is based has not worked well”. Previously, Eurosceptics and opponents of the Community method stated that the success of Airbus was due to its intergovernmental nature. Is it the Socialists' intention to provide new food for thought on this subject? The debate which the European Parliament devoted to the Airbus Affair during its plenary last week is an extremely interesting one, both for the stances taken by the political groups and those taken by the presidency of the Council, as represented by Mr Hintz and the vice-president of the Commission, Mr Verheugen (see our bulletins 9387 and 9388); but the specific aspect of the potential SE statute was not raised. Nor was it mentioned in the stance taken previously by Michel Rocard (who accused the Airbus chiefs of choosing to “weaken the business rather than to modify the balance between the two dominant nations”), nor in the declarations of Airbus president Louis Gallois: “it is time for us to take coherent industrial decisions which go beyond national borders; national conflicts, I say this and I will say it again, are poison to Airbus”.
Even so, I would be astonished if the idea of making Airbus an SE did not come up for consideration at some time or other. It would be a partial measure, but possibly a useful one.
(F.R.)