Europe: the European Private Company Statute - trade ministers supportive

As noted in this earlier post, on 25 June the European Commission published a proposal for a European Private Company Statute. The European Private Company - or SPE, after its latin name Societas Privata Europaea - will be a new European legal form designed for small and medium sized enterprises. The SPE proposal has recently passed an important hurdle: on 18 July, as reported here, the European industry ministers provided their support. This said, the UK's Financial Times newspaper has reported:

Some EU countries are known to be unhappy with particular aspects of the SPE proposals. The very low minimum capital requirement, for example, has not been greeted warmly by Germany or Austria, where critics claim that this could make it too easy for fly-by-night businesses to incorporate. So there is a possibility that more referrals to national laws could get added in as the statute makes its way through the legislative process. And that leaves many observers guarded about the SPE’s usefulness at this stage".