유럽연합의 연방주의적 특성과 기업지배구조 정책

We evaluate the corporate governance policy of the EU. The EU adopted a series of community legislations for strengthening the protection of shareholders and other financial investors and facilitating a free choice and transfer of incorporation places by firms. We argue that the regulatory harmonization is not an efficient way for enhancing the protection of shareholders and other financial investors. But the EU legislations imposed for this objective are not so mandatory as to make the regulations of all the member countries uniform. This is because, in the community policy-making and implementation process, the set of forces wanting to enlarge the community intervention scope is checked by the set of forces wanting to keep the policy autonomy of the member countries as highly as possible. The compromise between two sets of forces makes however the EU legislations for promoting a free choice and transfer of incorporation places by firms incomplete, despite of some improvements. It is important to exploit the advantages of regulatory competition to find the best practices of corporate governance. This implies that the future EU legislations should be concentrated for eliminating the barriers against a free choice and transfer of incorporation places by firms.