The European commission could look into setting up a European Company (SE) monitoring service in order to better understand their creation and development. During a recent ETUI book launch, The European Company Statute - a new approach to corporate governance, Senior ETUI Researcher Norbert Kluge suggested that a greater understanding of European companies and how legislation surrounding them is actually applied on the ground is now required.

The European commission could look into setting up a European Company (SE) monitoring service in order to better understand their creation and development. During a recent ETUI book launch ("the European Company Statute - a new approach to corporate governance" ) Senior ETUI Researcher Norbert Kluge suggested that a greater understanding of European companies and how legislation surrounding them is actually applied on the ground is now required.

The most recent figures released in February suggest that roughly 327 SEs currently exist across the EU. This is up from 284 recorded in October 2008. However of the 327, only 69 of the total can be considered "normal" SEs, that is SEs that have a clearly identifiable business and actual declared employees. The number of "shelf" or "UFO" SEs - that is those that have no clear business purpose or where there are no employees or where the number of employees is unclear - has also increased by about 10%. They now total 258. A significant proportion of the total (118) have been also set up in the Czech Republic though the reasons for this remain unclear.