EU fund comes to former Siemens workers' aid[de] 

The Commission approved the two applications for assistance in putting 4,000 workers back into employment on 27 September 2007. The funds are part of a scheme introduced in 2006 as an instrument of solidarity to help workers affected by redundancies resulting from changes in world trade patterns find their way back into work. 

The funds can be awarded when more than 1,000 workers in a company or regional sector are made redundant due to major structural changes in world trade patterns and leading to substantially increased imports into the EU or a rapid decline in EU market share.

Siemens sold its mobile branch to the Taiwanese BenQ corporation on 1 October 2005. Almost exactly a year later, BenQ halted all payments to its 100% subsidiary in Germany, arguing that "turnover and return on investment with a view to the 2006 Christmas business" had not met the company's expectations. 3,300 workers in the regions of Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia were made redundant. 

At the same time, BenQ retained all the subsidiary's intellectual property, which had been outsourced to a separate company, and continued to produce mobile phones under the BenQ-Siemens brandname in Asia. At the end of 2006, BenQ Mobile stopped all production lines. 

Perlos , a Finnish company specialising in mobile phone accessories, decided to close down all production activities in Finland and move them to the company's other branches in countries such as Hungary, China, India, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Brazil and the United States. 1,000 workers in the company's two factories in the Northern Karelia region were made redundant by the decision. 

The funds - €12.8 million in the case of BenQ and €2 million in the case of Perlos - must be cleared by the Parliament and the Council before they can be paid. 

They only cover active employment measures such as counselling, job search and mobility allowances. €16.6 million in EGF funds have been allocated since the beginning of 2007. Eventually, the fund could amount to up to €500 million a year.