Brussels, 04/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 4 September, the European Commission published its fifth annual report on the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF), giving facts and figures for 2007-2011. The report makes the Commission's case for the EGF to continue beyond 2014 and for it to be expanded to include farming and small businesses. This idea is not shared by a minority of countries that want the EGF to be scrapped and therefore not included in the next EU budget (the Multiannual Financial Framework for 2014-2020).
Last year, the EGF was used twenty-two times in twelve Member States, providing a total of €128 million, a fifty percent increase on the previous year's contributions. Some 21,000 redundant workers received aid from the EGF to help them find a new job. The total of past and current beneficiaries is 91,000.
Presenting the report at a press conference, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Laszlo Andor said the EGF had achieved positive outcomes to the tune of 45%, in other words nearly half of the redundant workers aided went on to find a new job during the time in which the EGF provided up to 65% of the funding for training and job-seeking (twenty-four months).
“The European Globalisation Fund has proved to be an efficient and effective tool for people who have lost their job. (...) The EGF allows Member States to support targeted measures adapted to the circumstances of the workers in question. Since its launch in 2007, a total of some 91 000 redundant workers have already benefitted from or are about to receive EGF assistance for training, job search and other forms of support. The EGF will continue to play a crucial role in fighting unemployment,” said Andor in Brussels on Tuesday 4 September as talks on the EU's upcoming budget (the Multiannual Financial Framework) hot up. At stake for the EGF is €500 million - from the budget reserve rather from the main European budget itself.
The countries that oppose the fund, namely Poland, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, include some that paradoxically have made the greatest use of the EGF in recent years. They say that coping with the negative impact of globalisation should be a national, rather than EU, matter. Commissioner Andor, however, says the EGF “is a concrete expression of European solidarity and a practical instrument helping people and regions recover from large-scale layoffs.” (JK/transl.fl)