cross-border activities are becoming increasingly common.
                There is also a growing need for sending information between the
                various business registers. The systems existing today for searching for
                information in the registers and sending information between them
                are inadequate. agrees with
                the Commission's assessment that cooperation should be improved.

                An obvious point of departure is the need for cooperation to be
                designed to take account of applicable rules for protecting personal
                integrity. Business registers may contain various kinds of personal data
                and economic information. It is important to highlight all potential
                effects of increasing access to this information and the exchange of
                information. It should also be ensured that the processing of data is
                clearly based on a legal ground.

                Enhanced cooperation must not entail greater demands for reporting
                information on the part of the companies registered. It is also
                important that companies do not need to report the same information
                to several different government agencies. Cooperation should be based
                on the systems and information already existing. It should primarily
                focus on increasing access for companies, private individuals and
                agencies.

                Another objective should be to involve as many business registers as
                possible in the cooperation. There is a value in including non-EU
                countries as well, at least in the part of cooperation involving the
                possibilities of searching for business information.

The various business registers are, as is generally known, designed in
different ways in different countries. This means that the system
selected must be flexible. Besides being able to handle not only the
information registered today, it should also be adaptable as national
business registers change.

In our internal consultations with the agencies and organizations
concerned, it has been pointed out that the design of cooperation
should be determined on the basis of company needs, and particularly
those of small and medium-sized enterprises. Several of the bodies
consulted emphasize that there should be an easy way of searching for
business information in a single place and in one's own language. The
aim of closer cooperation on business registers must be to reduce the
administrative burden of companies. They also point out that it would
be desirable for cooperation to be developed in a way that leads to
savings for those compiling the registers.

With regard to the issue of how the details of enhanced cooperation
should be determined, Sweden has no objections in principle to a
governance agreement, if this solution is the most practicable way of
bringing about cooperation between as many business registers as
possible. However, it is important that the contents of such an
agreement are carefully considered, so that responsibility for funding
and operation, for example, is clarified. The complexity of these issues
should not be underestimated.

Future coordination with the registers following from the
Transparency Directive (2004/109/EC) may be worthwhile, if we are
aiming for coordination that entails reduced administrative burdens.
However, it is unclear what simplifications can be made.
Requirements for reporting information may vary for each register. In
any event, it should be possible to make it simpler to find the
information available in the registers in a single context. Such a
measure would have clear added value.

The Green Paper describes some alternative forms for enhanced
cooperation with regard to cross-border mergers and seat transfers:
the    European      Business     Register   (EBR)/Business     Register
Interoperability Throughout EU (BRITE), and the Internal Market
Information System (IMI), or a combination of these. What these
different alternatives would mean in practice is somewhat unclear. At
present, therefore, no specific solution can be definitely recommended
in favor of another. However, an obvious starting point should be to
make full use of the experience gained up to now from work on the
EBR/BRITE registers and to build on the practical solutions that work.

It should be stressed that there is nothing in practice to stop the
various projects from being coordinated in some form. The basic
question seems to be whether it is possible to build further on a
system that, in part, is based on voluntary cooperation. As far as the
is concerned, it is prepared to participate
in a process to determine whether it is possible to develop cooperation
that, in part, is based on voluntary action, but it is also open to
considering solutions based on increased EU legal obligations. One
considerable advantage of voluntary components of this cooperation is
that it would be easier for non-EU states to take part.

The agrees that the obligation to cooperate
with regard to foreign branches may need EU legal regulation in the
manner proposed by the Commission. This applies irrespective of the
form the cooperation takes otherwise.

Before a decision on the further direction is taken, a more thorough
account of the various alternatives needs to be given. It is important
that the alternative chosen is cost effective. The goal should be that it
does not lead to increased expenses on national or EU level. In order
to make an assessment as to which path should be chosen, it is
necessary to have an impact assessment of each alternative.
