Mr President, it seems that we are finally at the end of the road on the proposal for a directive which will regulate takeover bids. It is a proposal that has gone down a long and, I fear, stormy road in order to overcome some of the existing problems. It is true that there have been many problems. It is also true that the political agreement obtained in the Council last year enabled some of them to be resolved. I will therefore offer a few thoughts on the function of Parliament: in a codecision procedure, in which a political agreement has been reached on a complex matter, what should be the role of the European Parliament? Should our role be limited to saying “Amen” to the Council’s proposals? I do not think this should be the case, ladies and gentlemen. By this I do not mean that, once that agreement has been obtained in the Council, Parliament should decide to blow it out of the water. Ladies and gentlemen, we are politicians and therefore, we are always in favour of reaching political agreements. These thoughts are fully applicable to this report. The Council has reached an agreement that should be respected on its main points, as the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, has done in his magnificent report, on which I sincerely congratulate him. And I congratulate him not only on respecting the main points of that agreement, but also on seeking formulae which – and I stress, while respecting the main points – try to improve the legislative proposal. This is, in my understanding, the role of a colegislative institution such as Parliament in the codecision procedure. The amendments that our Committee is tabling can be grouped into three blocks. In the first block are a series of technical amendments that aim to either clarify concepts or fill gaps. I am not going to dwell on them. In the second block are a series of amendments that aim to improve the participation of workers when there is a takeover bid. We cannot close our eyes to reality: when there is a takeover there is staff restructuring, redundancies and so on, in short, measures which affect jobs. It is therefore important that workers and their representatives should be informed, from the start, of what is being planned and that they can make their voice heard in the actual takeover procedure. The third block contains those amendments that have been most controversial during the procedure. And I would like to have the power of conviction to prevent you from having any fears about the consequences that could be deduced from the approval of those amendments. It is true that the European Parliament Rules of Procedure do not make this easy, making these debates into a pure and simple dialogue between the deaf. What can we do? The first amendment refers to Article 4, which establishes what will be the competent authority for supervising the bid. In paragraph 1 it is established that it will be that of the Member State in which the company concerned has its headquarters, if – logically – its securities are admitted to trading in that Member State. What happens if they are not admitted to trading in that Member State? An answer is proposed that does not appear to be compatible with another amendment tabled by other Members, undoubtedly in good faith, requiring the criterion of headquarters. Because if the securities are not traded there, why should they be supervised by that authority? The second controversial amendment refers to the duty of neutrality. Here we met with very conflicting and even opposed positions, and a formula has been reached that permits some exceptional hypotheses in order to carry out some defensive manoeuvres when it is not possible to call a general meeting. My Group and I are going to support these amendments.

Political group: PSE