6.5 European Commission

In response to a request of the Commission of the European Communities (hereafter: the Commission) the High Level Group of Company Law Experts (hereafter: High Level Group), chaired by Jaap Winter, has advised the Commission on company law reforms and corporate governance (Hopt 2006: 120). Part of the advice of the High Level Group is concerned with independence. This advice has led to Commission Recommendation (2005/162/EC) ‘on the role of non-executive or supervisory directors of listed companies and on the committees of the (supervisory) board’. Furthermore, in 2011 the European Commission published a Green Paper on the European corporate governance framework, which also addresses independence. The next subsection first describes the advice of the High Level Group, thereafter subsection 6.5.2 describes the Recommendation of the Commission and subsection 6.5.3 describes the Green Paper.