Brussels, 04/03/2013 (Agence Europe) -Commissioner for Industry Antonio Tajani has called on manufacturer of earth-moving equipment Caterpillar to examine the Commission's forthcoming proposals for enhancing the European industrial sector, before it confirms its decision to make 1,400 employees at its Belgian factory redundant.
Following a meeting on 1 March with Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo which focused on the question of restructuring at the Caterpillar factory at Gosselies, Belgium, which could lead to getting rid of 1,400 jobs from the 3,700 workers at the site, Tajani reaffirmed his commitment to defending European industry. In an interview with the Belgian TV channel RTBF, the commissioner insisted that “we need to get involved in the re-industrialisation of the EU. I'm going to be very firm about this. If we want to meet the challenges contained in the crisis, industry and the real economy need to be defended”.
De Gucht tackles Di Rupo. On Sunday, 3 March, the commissioner for trade, Karel De Gucht, criticised the way in which his fellow Belgian, Prime Minister Di Rupo, attacked Europe the end of last week in the debate on the huge redundancies announced at Caterpillar in Belgium. He said: “I can understand that the prime minister is responding in an emotional way because this involves a social disaster in his backyard but it is too easy to use Europe as a scapegoat”. He called on the Belgian government to spend more energy on investing in innovation and added that “the resurrection of European and Belgian industry will be founded on R&D and the new products would put on the market. We do better to worry about that than to continually concern ourselves with institutional problems”. On 28 February, Di Rupo denounced the lack of coherence in industrial policy at EU level and urged the Commission to improve the way in which it tackled and fair trade. He also criticised the importance given to budgetary criteria rather than developing synergies in industry. (EH/transl.fl)