In order to stimulate the common market and the cooperation between businesses therein the European Union has always tried to remove the differences between the national corporate laws of the Member States. In 1968 the first directive on corporate law entered into force and since then a number of directives have been drafted and some of them have entered into force. One of the initiatives in this field is the 1985 proposal for a tenth directive concerning the cross-border merger of public limited liability companies.