Promoting Employee Financial Participation in the EU-27

"Information and Communication Project - Promoting Employee Financial Participation in the EU-27" (Pro-EFP) is a project co-financed by the European Commission's DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (VP/2010/013/0084), led and promoted by the Inter-University Centre of the Free University of Berlin, the Association of Employers of Slovenia ZDS, and the Italian trade union research institute Sindnova. Diesis is the project administrator and grant holder.

It is a platform to promote employee financial participation (EFP) in Europe. Against the background of the European Economic and Social Committee's (EESC) Own-Initiative Opinion SOC 371 of 21 October 2010 on the subject, our goal is to make concrete policy proposals for the benefit of European employees and employers.

More information is available at www.proefp.org.¹

Background

Since 2001, employee ownership and financial participation in Europe has grown dramatically. Ten years ago, the Belgian Presidency of the European Union convened a conference on the theme of employee financial participation (EFP). Over the intervening decade, the number of large European companies with employee share plans more than doubled.

In November 2010, the new Belgian Presidency will convene another conference, this time to examine 10 years of public policies in support of employee ownership in Europe. 2010 is also the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) adopted the own-initiative opinion SOC 371 on Employee Financial Participation in Europe on 21 Oct. 2010 by 170 votes to 9 with 22 abstentions.

Activities

The future of EFP in Europe strongly depends on the level of endorsement from social partners and civil society organisations. Thus, the project provides a platform for the participating European social partners and civil society organisations to introduce their positions, views and best practices:

• The project partners organise nine national conferences.
• The "Week of EFP" on 17-19 October 2011 hosted by the EESC channels the ideas and results of the national conferences to the EU level. The week will include a series of roundtables, conferences, and similar events.
• In order to ensure sustainability, a Resource Centre for EFP based on a web portal is set up.

The meetings, conferences and dissemination actions are building on a Conference/Workshop Folder containing of six thematic modules focussing on EFP schemes that match competitiveness together with social inclusion and quality jobs.

Core issues

• EFP and corporate governance
• EFP in small and medium-sized enterprises
• A European Model EFP with specific focus on the Building Block Approach
• Development of European ESOP models with regard to the problem of business succession
• Macroeconomic effects of EFP (taxation, efficiency of financial markets, employment and quality of work, savings for retirement, risk management, etc.)
• EFP in public services

Objectives

The project has the aim to provide support for including EFP in the EU policy agenda in response to the most pressing EU challenges.

It creates a large partnership to identify best practices in order to improve policy making and policy implementation while at the same time monitoring and reporting on Member State progress in implementation of EFP practices.

Involving key EU and national stakeholders, social partners, civil society organisations and other institutions it promotes a culture of social dialogue and partnership in a context of economic democracy. To this end it contributes to the implementation of the Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC).

Events and dissemination materials are tailored to the concrete needs of employees and companies. Concerns of trade unions, employer associations and civil society organisations are taken into consideration to prepare a common ground for wider dialogue at European level.

As specific objectives the project wants to:

• improve dissemination of studies and research;
• frame EFP in the economic and social policies of the EU;
• facilitate EFP in small and medium-sized enterprises;
• further deepen previous research on taxation of EFP, macroeconomic effects and its potential role in the public sector;
• promote a common European platform for EFP.