Since 1992, the EU has debated the issue of taxation and social security schemes (pension systems, bonus systems, share schemes and share options) to promote the financial participation of employees in the enterprise in which they work. There is a wide variety of these schemes in the Member States with some countries (France and the UK) having a long tradition of encouraging financial participation and others just starting the discussion. In a recommendation of 1992 and a report in 1997 (the so-called PEPPER I and II reports - PEPPER stands for "Promotion of Employee Participation in Profits and Enterprise Results"), the Commission tried to highlight best practices and identify obstacles to the use of such financial participations by employees. In July 2002, it presented a Communication providing guidelines for the development of such financial participation schemes in Europe by outlining a set of general principles and proposing solutions to tackle such obstacles.
