Legislative Observatory
European Parliament
Please fill in this field to find a procedure

Mobilisation of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund: redundancies in textiles sector in Spain and Portugal

2009/2066(BUD)

The European Parliament adopted by 578 votes to 26, with 12 abstentions, a resolution approving the annexed decision on the mobilisation of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) to assist the textile industry in Spain and Portugal.

The Fund shall be mobilised to provide the sum of EUR 4 139 550 in commitment and payment appropriations.

Parliament recalls that the European Union has set up the appropriate legislative and budgetary instruments to provide additional support to workers who suffer from the consequences of major structural changes in world trade patterns and to assist their reintegration into the labour market. Spain and Portugal requested assistance in respect of cases concerning redundancies in the textiles sector, respectively in the regions of Cataluña and Norte-Centro and have fulfilled the eligibility criteria set up by the EGF Regulation. Parliament invites the institutions involved to make the necessary efforts to accelerate the mobilisation of the Fund for the requested amount.

It stresses that the European Union should use all its means to face the consequences of the global economic and financial crisis and notes, in this respect, that the EGF can play a crucial role in the reintegration of workers made redundant into the labour market.

Parliament also recalls that the mobilisation of the EGF in payment appropriations should not jeopardise the funding of the European Union Social Fund. They express some doubts about whether complementarity with other existing instruments like the EU Social Fund is guaranteed.

In this context, the resolution commits the European Parliament to evaluate the functioning and added value of the EGF in the context of the general assessment of the programmes and other various instruments created by the IIA of 17 May 2006 on budgetary discipline and sound financial management, within the process of the 2007-2013 multiannual financial framework budget review.