The European Parliament,

A. whereas the multinational company AKZO N.V., which is based in the Netherlands and has a majority holding in the Spanish company La Seda de Barcelona S.A., has lost interest in the plants at El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona) and Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) and has embarked upon a policy leading to the closure of these plants,

B. having regard to the plan to sell its shares, which has been declared null and void by the Spanish National Stock Exchange Commission and would have resulted in the insolvency of La Seda and an inability by the company to meet its responsibilities to its creditors,

C. whereas this action endangers the continued existence of a company which employs 2800 workers, is a cornerstone of Catalan industry and is located in an Objective 2 region, and whereas any restructuring plan will result in a large number of job losses,

1 .Voices its complete solidarity with those workers affected by or threatened with redundancy;

2. Calls on AKZO N.V. to meet all its obligations to its creditors, so as to make the restructuring process viable; calls on the company to undertake proper negotiations with the workers' representatives;

3. Condemns those forms of restructuring that consist solely of wholesale redundancies and plant closures and do not involve a strategy for the sector which has been negotiated by management and labour and takes the workforce into consideration;

4. Calls on the Commission to investigate whether AKZO N.V. has violated Community legislation in the area of competition and the transfer of shareholdings;

5. Emphasizes that it has, in various resolutions, argued in favour of the economic development of regions which are the least favoured, in industrial decline and in the process of conversion; calls on the Commission to speed up its Objective 2 programmes;

6. Calls on the Commission to submit as soon as possible an in-depth study of the impact of dismantling the Multifibre Arrangment, which has provisionally been extended;

7. Calls on the Commission to submit as soon as possible a proposal for a directive supplementing and strengthening Directive 75/129/EEC on collective redundancies and calls on the Council to adopt a directive protecting workers in the event of redundancies;

8. Calls on the Council as a matter of urgency to adopt the regulation on a European Company Statute and the associated directive on the involvement of workers in seeking solutions to crisis situations as well as the directive on the right of workers to information and consultation;

9. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the Governments of the Member States, the managements of AKZO and La Seda de Barcelona and the trade union organizations concerned.