REQUEST TO THE NEW MEMBER STATES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Copies of EFES' letters of May 28, 2007  (see request and reactions below)
    - Bulgaria: Letter to the Prime Minister
    - Cyprus: Letter to the President
    - Czech Republic: Letter to the Prime Minister
    - Estonia: Letter to the Prime Minister
    - Hungary: Letter to the Prime Minister
    - Latvia: Letter to the Prime Minister
    - Lithuania: Letter to the Prime Minister
    - Malta: Letter to the Prime Minister
    - Poland: Letter to the Prime Minister
    - Romania: Letter to the Prime Minister
    - Slovakia: Letter to the Prime Minister
    - Slovenia: Letter to the Prime Minister

As a company or as an organisation, you can help
As a company or an organisation, you are invited to send your own letter to those Prime Ministers, expressing your support to EFES' request (see contact list below). Please send also a copy to EFES' secretariat.
See for instance the following letters:

Supporting letters
    - Model letter of the Netherlands Participation Institute
    - Supporting letter of the Belgian Platform for employee ownership

Contact list
      Download Excel file

This is what we ask the new Member States
A recent study funded by the European Commission enlightened the fact that 89% of all 2.000 widest European Groups (29 millions employees) have employee share ownership and 83% have plans to develop it more.
These Groups consider employee share ownership as one of the best ways for aligning employees and shareholders interests, motivating people, improving corporate performances and giving people the chance to share better corporate results.
They are used to offer annual share plans to their employees in all possible countries.
Unfortunately, the main obstacle in development of their common human resources policy is the lack of proper legislation in several Member States. This situation causes discrimination between their employees - people from various countries, and put a brake on their  development and investments abroad.
This is why we would like to trigger discussion about the most effective legislation. Our aim is to encourage all governments to introduce a dedicated legislation, allowing the following employee share plans, as the most used across the world, in the European Union and the United States as well:
   -  Employee Stock Purchase Plan, possibly annual
   -  Discount rate 20%, free of tax and social security, up to 10% of annual gross salary (or 5.000 Euro annually)
   -  Blockage period: 3 years (through deferred stocks, blocked stocks or options with vesting period).

Reactions
   - Slovenia - Letter from Minister of Labour, Family and Social Affairs, June 5, 2007
   - Estonia - Letter from President, June 18, 2007
   - Latvia - Letter from Prime Minister, June 15, 2007
   - Slovenia - Letter from Prime Minister, June 20, 2007
   - Czech Republic - Letter from Deputy Minister of Finance, June 29, 2007
   - Latvia - Letter from President, July 4, 2007
   - Latvia - Letter from Minister of Economics, July 3, 2007
   - Cyprus - Letter from President, July 10, 2007 (1)
   - Cyprus - Letter from President, July 10, 2007 (2)
   - Latvia - Letter from Prime Minister, July 17, 2007
   - Poland - Letter from Minister of Labour and Social Policy, July 25, 2007
   - Czech Republic - Letter from Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, July 25, 2007
   - Latvia - Letter from Minister of Economics, July 26, 2007
   - Hungary - Letter from Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, August 10, 2007
   - Slovenia - Letter from Ministry of the Economy, July 23, 2007
   - Lithuania - Letter from Ministry of Economy, July 27, 2007