25. Acknowledges that business succession, additional funding, staff retention and other problems characteristic of SMEs can be alleviated by employee share ownership plans; is of the opinion that employee ownership schemes in small and micro enterprises can be combined with labour market measures, such as unemployment benefits, and thus help to reinstate the unemployed;

26. Notes that there is a lack of information and education about possible employee ownership schemes, especially among SMEs; calls on the Commission and the Member States in this regard to better organise information campaigns and to encourage the cross-border transferability of best practice schemes among Member States.

6. Stresses that further transparency is needed in national employee ownership schemes and especially in calculating the effective tax burden across the EU-28 in order to prevent double taxation and discrimination;

26. Recalls that strong, professional and independent media and internet provision are an indispensable element of a democratic system; to this end, welcomes the adoption of the Strategy of Public Information System Development and its Action Plan and the planned withdrawal of the state from any media ownership; welcomes the fact that the Strategy respects the constitutional rights regarding minority language media; is concerned, however, about attempts to control and interfere in the media sector and calls on the authorities to ensure its independence from political pressures and other influence; calls upon the Serbian Government to ...[+++] ensure freedom and independence of the media in line with EU standards; is concerned that a criminal law was introduced barring public comment in the media on judicial proceedings and verdicts; is concerned about threats directed against Serbian journalists, and calls for their thorough investigation in order to provide the journalists with a safe environment to conduct their work effectively and without the necessity of self-censorship; underlines the need to take steps against the concentration of media ownership and lack of transparency in the media as well as to ensure equal access to the advertising market, including the disbursement of public funds spent on advertising and promotion; calls on journalists to respect the Code of Ethics; notes that the level of internet access remains low, recognises the importance of the internet in media freedom and urges the authorities to maximise their efforts in this field;

13. Urges, with a view to the upcoming G20 meeting, the progressive setting-up of a multilateral financial supervision and regulation system; asks the Council to defend a common position on the closure of tax havens and strict control of remuneration schemes as priorities to restore financial stability; recalls the need for reform of the governance of the Bretton Woods Institutions in order to modify voting rights and set up a double majority scheme of member states and capital share; ask for the redefinition of the debt sustainability framework of international financial institutions, the setting-up of a multilateral debt work-out me ...[+++]chanism and a responsible lending framework; calls for the strict regulation of over-the-counter derivative transactions; emphasises the need to strengthen and expand prudential rules beyond the Bale II framework in order to increase substantially banks' compulsory reserve requirements and limit securitisation; asks for multilateral stringent disclosure, capital and debt requirements for hedge funds and private equity;

These are important distinctions, as I did not recommend a remission order for a stock option plan at SDL Optical.