This is a transnational federation of employers associations. UNICE is one of the earliest (founded in 1958) and most influential of the pressure groups operating in Brussels. It represents the interests of industry as a whole, and is a confederation comprising 36 national federations of major business associations from 30 European countries. UNICE plays an informal and a formal role in European public affairs, with priorities centring on market liberalization and deregulation, but it remains less enthusiastic about initiatives in the area of social policy. UNICE has as one of its objectives the promotion and elaboration of an industrial policy in a European spirit, which is qualified by the statement that it should mainly consist in taking into consideration the industrial imperatives in the various policies of the European Communities and not become an instrument of intervention. It has therefore tended to oppose measures such as the proposed Statute for a European Company (SE), which threatened to place restraints upon its members, although on occasion its impact on the European Communities has been weakened by differences of interest between both its economic and its national components. UNICE operates as one of the Commission's social partners alongside the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). See: European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC); International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU); Statute for a European Company (SE)