SEV Adopts Charter of Rights and Obligations

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At its Annual General Assembly, the Federation of Greek Industries (SEV) approved and adopted a 'Charter of Rights and Obligations for Enterprises'.

The Annual General Assembly of the Federation of Greek Industries (SEV), which was held in May 2005, voted to approve and adopt a 'Charter of Rights and Obligations for Enterprises'. The Charter is a document summarising the common values, positions, viewpoints and policies to which enterprises have committed them, as well as their rights. It aims at creating a general framework for socially responsible enterprises to operate and defining the relations that should exist between the enterprise, employees, the state and society at large.

According to the Charter, an enterprise must:

• Give priority to its survival, assume its responsibilities and fulfil its obligations;

• Meet its statutory obligations and help combat corruption.

• Yield a reasonable dividend to its shareholders, apply the principles of corporate governance and fulfil its obligations to its employees, suppliers and customers.

• Avoid harmonized practices and not impair competition to the detriment of consumers.

• Invest in workplace knowledge, training and lifelong learning for its employees.

• Help create jobs, implement a meritocratic system for evaluating performance, promotions and pay, ensure good and safe working conditions with equal rights and opportunities for all, and respect the balance between working time and personal life.

• Obey the rules of consumer protection and respect consumers’ right to be provided with safe, quality products and services at competitive prices.

• Follow technological developments, improve its competitiveness, modernize its production processes and innovate in the products or services it provides.

• Respect the environment, implement disaster prevention measures, actively promote recycling and help save energy.

Finally, as an active corporate citizen, the enterprise commits itself to offering to society part of the added value it produces and to fostering corporate culture.

In parallel, the enterprise has the right:

• To operate within a stable, clear-cut, codified, objective, predictable and internationally competitive institutional and legal framework which fosters entrepreneurship and boosts competitiveness,

• To a prudent, transparent management of public finances, and to a stable, predictable framework of taxation that supports entrepreneurship and investments,

• To demand transparency, reliability and reciprocity in the relations of the state with citizens and other enterprises, as well as effective judicial protection,

• To access to a unified, effective European market not restricted by monopolies of any kind, which operates on terms that do not affect its own short- or long-term competitiveness or that of the economy as a whole.

• To a modern educational system that provides skills, knowledge and values, which match social and economic, needs and foster individual responsibility, teamwork, creativity and innovation.

• To access to a labour market that does not compromise the enterprise’s adaptability to change and that encourages increased employment as well as the demand for an effective state social protection network for the unemployed.

• To demand from the state a straightforward, effective framework of rules and standards to protect the consumer, the enterprise’s reputation and its objective treatment.

• To a single national and European policy to protect intellectual property, support research and develop innovation.

The enterprise has a right to a clear-cut, comprehensive national spatial planning scheme and modern infrastructures to provide it with transportation, waste management, telecommunications and energy networks.

Finally, an enterprise, which meets its above-mentioned obligations, demands state recognition of its contribution to society and respect for its rights.

As the Vice Chairman of SEV, D. Daskalopoulos, pointed out in his talk, 'The Charter is not a set of rules that we apply for other people to see or to give an appearance of legitimacy…. The Charter is the responsible position of the business class vis-à-vis the urgent, vital problem of competitiveness.'

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