(BERLIN) - Germany said Friday that a revised version of its controversial "Volkswagen law", approved in the German parliament, complies with demands laid down by the European Court of Justice.

Berlin has "met the requirements of the Court of Justice" in the bill passed late Thursday, a spokeswoman for the justice ministry told reporters.

The revised legislation retains a clause allowing the German state of Lower Saxony -- where Volkswagen is based -- to hold a blocking minority in the company with a 20-percent stake.

Shareholders in German companies normally need to own 25 percent of a firm before they can block strategic decisions.

This effective state veto is bitterly opposed by Porsche, the sports car maker which controls 74 percent of Volkswagen, Europe's biggest carmaker.

The law, which dates back to 1960, has also been the subject of a long-running spat between Germany and the European Commission, which says it violates European Union rules on the free flow of capital.

Last year, the EU's top court ruled against the law, forcing Berlin to come up with this latest version.

"It's now up to the European Commission to react," the spokeswoman said.

In a letter this week addressed to German parliamentarians, Porsche's boss made a last-ditch effort to prevent the adoption of the new law.

"There is no objective reason why Volkswagen continues to benefit from rules which go much further than those applied to Daimler, BMW or Siemens," Wendelin Wiedeking wrote in the letter obtained by AFP.

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