New facts about employee ownership in November 2011

kristySRI/ESG News

EFES NEWSLETTER – NOVEMBER 2011

Euroshareholders
Euroshareholders is the organization of European shareholders associations. It was founded in 1992 while the European Federation of Employee Share Ownership was founded in 1998. Both organizations developed a good cooperation for many years, considering a number of common objectives regarding corporate governance in Europe, shareholders’ rights and equal treatment of all shareholders, harmonization at the EU level on shareholders issues, financial education and scientific research on capital market and finance. Both organizations recently decided to reinforce their links. The recent general meeting of Euroshareholders in The Hague welcomed the EFES as a new associate member, while Euroshareholders will reciprocally join the EFES. More information

The EU Corporate Governance Framework
The European Commission organized a public consultation about “The EU Corporate Governance Framework”. All contributions are now public, including ours. Question 23 is about employee ownership: “Are there measures to be taken, and is so, which ones, to promote at EU level employee share ownership?” Of course we answered positively, arguing that “Employees’ interest in the long-term sustainability of their company is going to be increasingly a crucial element of trust and corporate governance. Not only can employee owners contribute greatly to increase the proportion of long-term shareholders, but we will also see that employee ownership itself will be more and more perceived as a trust indicator.” We are delighted to see that so many organizations gave encouraging answers too, including international unions like ETUC or UNI Europa. All contributions are available here, while the EFES’ one can be downloaded here

Click here to read the newsletter