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The vast majority of employees in the Netherlands are covered by collective bargaining, mostly at industry level. However, many large companies negotiate their own deals. Negotiators generally follow the recommendations agreed at national level and recent pay increases have been moderate.
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The objective of Directive 2002/14 is to establish a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the European Community. In contrast to the EWC and SE Directives, this legislation lays down minimum standards at national level. It is the first in which the EU has extended to every member state the obligation to provide a procedure for effective, ongoing and regular information and consultation for workers on recent and probable developments in the undertaking’s activities, financial and economic situation, the evolution of employment and in particular of decisions that might lead to major changes in the organisation of labour.
The European Cooperative Society (SCE) constitutes another step in the completion of the EU’s internal market. It aims to reduce existing cross-border obstacles and to make it easier for companies to operate across European borders, thereby enhancing their competitiveness. In this sense, the SCE complements the legislation on European Companies (SE) which has enabled companies to set up as a European public limited company. The SCE fills the gap regarding the transnational activities of cooperatives. As in the case of the SE, the SCE legislation consists of a Regulation on the Statute for an SCE and an accompanying Directive on worker involvement. The Regulation came into force from 18 August 2006, by which date the member states also had to transpose the SCE directive into national law.
SE is the abbreviation for Societas Europeae which is the (formal) Latin name for “European Company”. Every company established under the European Company Statute must be preceded or followed by the abbreviation “SE”.
The SE Regulation entered into force on 8 October 2004. By that time EU member states were required to have transposed the Directive into national law. Since that day companies may establish an SE.
An SE can be set up in four ways:
All types of formation share a cross-border element: they must always involve companies from at least two different EU member states. In the case of a transformation, the company must have had a subsidiary in another member state for at least two years.
The SE must be registered in the same member state in which the administrative head office is located.
In the eyes of the Commission, the European Company Statute (ECS) “will mean in practice, that companies established in more than one Member State will be able to merge and operate throughout the EU on the basis of a single set of rules and a unified management and reporting system. They will therefore avoid the need to set up a financially costly and administratively time-consuming complex network of subsidiaries governed by different national laws. In particular, there will be advantages in terms of significant reductions in administrative and legal costs, a single legal structure and unified management and reporting systems.” The Ciampi report estimates that savings in terms of administrative costs may be up to €30 billion per year.
Moreover, this new business form may have a value in publicity terms, as it indicates that this company is a “real European undertaking” thereby possibly removing e.g. psychological barriers.
However, this optimistic view is not shared by everyone. Indeed, the attractiveness of the ECS might be reduced because it de facto does not provide for one uniform European corporate form. In all matters that are not regulated by the Regulation, the SE will be governed by the company law provisions of the member state in which the SE is registered. Consequently, there will not be a single SE law but 30 SE laws which may diverge significantly from each other
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