draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. – Mr President, I am not going to make any great claims for this draft directive. I fully sympathise with what the Commissioner has said and those who argue that it will not create a level playing field in cross-border takeovers in the Union. There is no doubt about that. Member States will still be able to sanction their companies to take anti-bid measures with the approval of only the board and not of the shareholders. Therefore, it fails to deal with a major potential obstacle to cross-border takeovers and restructuring. The choice of whether to apply the rules is only a fig leaf to disguise that reality. Many Member States, including some like Germany who proclaim themselves in favour of more political integration, are against foreigners taking over their own companies. In Britain we have many hang-ups but, fortunately, not that one. We have been losing foreign direct investment due to our failure to join the euro, but the signal that this part of the directive sends out about France and Germany may help to sustain Britain's share. For the euro area in particular this failure is a serious own goal. Why then is this draft worth supporting? The provisions in this text to protect minority shareholders are important and will encourage more cross-border portfolio share ownership. By ensuring that there is a threshold in each Member State at which someone taking control of a company has to launch a full bid for the other shares, this directive stops creeping control of a company. It therefore means that a new shareholder with perhaps only 30% of the stock cannot decide, without providing an exit for all the other shareholders, to pay themselves special dividends or to sell off assets cheaply to another private company that they happen to control. By reassuring investors about those practices, by no means unknown in many Union financial markets, the directive will encourage more cross-border share ownership. That is crucial to the efficiency and returns on pension funds, for the support of the retired and for insurance funds for the compensation of the distressed. Overall, however, this is clearly a modest measure. It does no harm, it does some good. It sends the wrong signals but, in reality, it changes too little; it does not change anything in the reverse direction. Certainly calling it a takeover directive is a misnomer and would probably be a breach of the United Kingdom's Trades Descriptions Act. But all that is politically attainable at present. For those who would like to see more radical opening-up of cross-border mergers, there is also the promise of a clearer view in the next Parliament and the prospect that the markets themselves can add to the pressures on companies to apply best practice in consulting their shareholders. Transparency in this matter, as in others, may help, and we must not let the best be the enemy of the good. Let me finally reiterate something on the debate with the Socialist Group on employee consultation. Mr Lehne, to whom I would like to pay tribute, has certainly worked very hard, as I did, on a text that would have satisfied the Group, even though the position on takeovers, as we have seen, is effectively unchanged. Takeovers will not be made any easier but, nevertheless, the Group wanted a form of words to provide some political concession, as if they were being made easier. In reality, that form of words in their amendments merely echoes what is already in the information and consultation directive. It provides employees with nothing new, but potential differences in the legal text between this draft directive if it is voted and that one could mean a risk of litigation over takeovers if it is voted through. For that reason, we should vote against these amendments and support what is, I agree, a flawed and partial compromise, but, nevertheless, one which makes some progress.

Political group: ELDR