Dominique Michel: Fifty companies operating in different sectors have signed international framework agreements with five global trade union organisations. The first was signed in 1988 by the French food multinational Danone, the first in 1995 by the hotel chain ACCOR. It was not until 2000 that the number of agreements signed each year accelerated to 50 by the end of 2006. Among them is the Swedish furniture company IKEA; the American banana company Chiquita; German pencil manufacturers Faber-Castell and Staedler; oil companies in Norway (Statoil), Italy (ENI) and Russia (Lukoil); car manufacturers in Germany and France, such as Volkswagen, Daimler-Chrysler, Renault and Peugeot-Citroen; Spanish and French electricity producers Endesa and EDF; Telecommunications companies in Spain (Telefonica) and Greece (OTE) and retailers in France (Carrefour) and Sweden (H-M). France Telecom is the youngest company to have signed an international framework agreement with a global trade union confederation. The comprehensive agreement, signed on 21 December 2006 between the French multinational Union Network International (UNI) and telecommunications unions around the world and employing more than 200,000 people worldwide, addresses compliance with ILO core standards across the group, including the right to join a trade union and bargain collectively and without discrimination or forced labour or child labour. Ilo Online discussed these global agreements with Dominique Michel, team leader of the ILO`s multinational programme. Dominique Michel: An international (or global) framework agreement (IFA) is an instrument negotiated between a multinational and a Federation of the World Union (GUF) to establish an ongoing relationship between the parties and to ensure that the company meets the same standards in all the countries in which it operates. The sectoral unions in the multinational`s country of origin are also involved in the negotiations of the agreement. Although framework agreements are not CSR initiatives, they are often cited in the CSR debate, as they are one of the ways in which companies can express their commitment to certain principles.