The EU Member States will soon be required to provide listed companies with the opportunity to open their general meetings for online participation. This is mandated by a new Directive which has been agreed upon in Brussels by the European Parliament and the Council, currently under German chairmanship. The European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) today approved a text previously accepted in the Council by the Member States. The EU Council President, Federal Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries, visited the Committee today and strongly advocated the compromise negotiated under her leadership.
"Cross-border enhancement of shareholder rights sends the right signal for a sustainable investment climate in Europe. This will ensure stable capital markets and may serve to limit the influence of pure financial investors. In this way, long-term corporate strategies may regain more importance compared with short-term profit maximisation," said Minister Zypries in Brussels.
In addition to introducing virtual general meetings, the Directive includes additional measures to increase attendance at general meetings: In the future, shareholders will be able to issue a proxy for voting rights to any person of their choice. Companies will be required to provide cross-border information to their shareholders about general meetings and the precise conditions for participation. This ensures that shareholders will have at their disposal both the necessary information and the actual instruments to actively exercise their voting rights. Minister Zypries, in thanking the previous EU Presidencies of Austria and Finland for leading the negotiations in advance of the German EU Presidency, said that "the days when small investors are left for years without information about their stock investments in another EU Member State are over."
The European Commission submitted the Proposal for the Directive, of which Germany was one of the initiators, at the beginning of last year. The proposal must be approved by the plenary session of the European Parliament before it can be formally adopted by the Council – presumably in February.
