In July 2011, the European Commission consulted the European social partners on the basis of a consultation document on the possible review of the SE Directive. The social partners replied in October 2011. BUSINESSEUROPE recommended that the Commission give priority to simplifying the SE Regulation, while the ETUC asked for a continuation of the dialogue on improving the SE rules (both the Directive and the Regulation). It is now up to the European Commission to react.

The document identified three problematic areas concerning the rules on employee involvement contained in the SE Directive:

(a) the complexity of the procedure for employee involvement;

(b) the lack of legal certainty concerning certain aspects of the negotiation procedure; and

(c) the concern that the use of the SE form could affect the rights to employee involvement granted by national or EU law. In the documents the European Commission raised four questions related to these areas. The national SEEurope experts reacted to the questions based on their expertise. In the meantime, both ETUC and Business Europe have reacted to the consultation document.

Documents:

• Reply from ETUC (October 2011)
• SEEurope summary report Questions related to the review of the SE Directive – Basic considerations for the Social Partners’ consultation