Brussels, 09/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 8 November, the EU Council of Ministers adopted two decisions aimed at allocating a total of €6.56 million to Austria and Greece via the EU Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF). As the Austrian road transport sector is particularly affected by the financial and economic crisis, the Council has accepted the Austrian request for EGF support totalling €3.64 million. In Greece, the EGF is expected to come into play with up to €2.92 million to help workers made redundant in the retail trade. This comes in the wake of plummeting private consumer demand in the context of the sovereign-debt crisis and recession that is expected to be equivalent to 5% of GDP for the year 2011.
On Monday 7 November, however, the European Parliament's budgets committee had approved EGF intervention amounting to €42.3 million in answer to three requests for assistance. Alongside Greece and Austria, Ireland had also filed applications for EGF aid. The MEPs had therefore followed up the European Commission's proposal with a view to granting unprecedented aid, i.e. equivalent to almost one tenth of the sum of all aid attributed since 2007 to Ireland (see EUROPE 10467). The EGF is expected to grant nearly €35 million, for the three applications filed by the Irish authorities, to assist 6,000 workers made redundant in the building, architecture, mechanical engineering and technical testing sectors.
At present, the Council has only approved two of the financially least consequential requests for procedural reasons. The case of Ireland is due to be formally endorsed during the upcoming Council, on Monday 14 November. (JK/transl.jl)