Other lines of action aim to establish stronger links between innovative enterprises and suitable investors at transnational level and to enable venture capital funds established in any given Member State to operate and invest freely throughout the EU by 2012.

The purpose of this is to establish simple, fast and affordable out-of-court settlement procedures for consumers and protect relations between businesses and their customers.

Only four Member States currently apply, with some modulation, the UCPD also to B2B relations.[33] The extension, at EU level, of the scope of the UCPD to B2B relations has been mooted in the past by some stakeholders mainly with a view to solving the problem of the practices of Misleading Directory Companies affecting mainly small enterprises and independent professionals.

5. Points out that the rules governing corporate governance are generally designed to maintain a duality of power within the collegiate decision-making body by distinguishing between management and supervisory functions so as to limit conflicts of interest but stresses that non-executive structures may, besides their monitoring task, also have vital advisory, mediating and networking functions, and a particular role in linking up with societal demands and general interest. These rules are also designed to strengthen the role and rights of shareholders, in particular through better information and financial transparency. However, the rece ...[+++]nt financial scandals and the way they have affected the system as a whole offer grounds for a broader approach to matters of corporate governance; requests therefore that, in addition to the interests of institutional or individual shareholders, which are dealt with in depth in the communication, the Commission should take explicit account of the interests of all other stakeholders (employees, creditors, clients, suppliers, etc.) in the various proposals it will be submitting as part of its action plan, giving particular weight to the principle of corporate social and environmental responsibility; emphasises that decent structures and practices of information and consultation of workers form an indispensable part of European corporate governance and is of the opinion that all European company law directives should contain obligations for information and consultation of employee representatives where major decisions are at stake for the continuity of firms and jobs.

D. whereas a Euro-Arab business association covering the entire European Union would help to develop ties between businesspeople from both areas, thus strengthening economic relations between the European Union and the Arab world,

Operational analysis: the process of analysis of operations which constitute, or appear to constitute, breaches during many phases such as the collection of information, evaluation of the reliability of the information, the linking of information, as well as the formulation of recommendations aimed at identifying persons or businesses implicated and/or to detect other offences.