EU Globalisation fund: more than solidarity symbol?[fr][de] 

The Globalisation Adjustment Fund will have a limited annual budget of 500 million euro. Member states wil be able to claim financial assistance for retraining or job search allowances for laid-off workers in case of "major structural changes in world trade patterns" (read globalisation). The Commission has worked out very complex criteria to define under what conditions help can be given.

In their joint press conference, Commission President Barroso and Social Affairs Commissioner Spidla underlined the solidarity aspect of the new fund. "This is not a fund to protect sectors that are no longer competitive, but a fund to help people", the Commission President said. "We want to show that the EU cares". 

Some economic experts have serious doubts about the globalisation fund. They see several challenges and issues:

• what is the European added-value, except for the symbolic gesture of solidarity? Will the fund not risk undermining the responsability of member states to find their own response to cases of economic restructuring?
• is there no danger that the fund will become the next battle field for member states' claims of "juste retour", each of them wanting to have their share of the limited funds?
• will the complex criteria be respected? 
• how to explain to laid-off workers that they are not entitled to fund help in case their company moves to another European member state (eg. from France to Estonia) whereas their unemployed neighbour might get European help because his company moved outside of the EU?

Daniel Gros, Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) expressed some doubts when talking to EurActiv: "The fund is supposed to be a symbol that the EU 'cares' about the plight of the losers of globalisation. But the size of the fund means that this is really only tokenism. With half a billion euro, you cannot do much at EU level. Moreover, even these modest funds are likely to be hotly contested: should you reward those who failed to prepare for globalisation? Can you give support to the relatively rich (in Germany or Sweden) who loose their job, when Poles make only a fraction even if they keep their job? Finally, this is not a really a task for the EU since member states decide with their policies whether globalisation becomes a problem or an opportunity.

Eurochambres, the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry also thinks the globalisation fund "is a mistake". "The fund produces a wrong message to European entrepreneurs", Eurochambres stated, "this fund may give the impression that we can protect Europe from the rest of the world, which we cannot". 

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is more positive and welcomes the Commission proposal. It opposes, however, the limited role of the social partners in the implementation of the Fund and criticises the fact that the support will only be given to workers who suffer from delocalisations to third countries and not also to workers who became victims of companies moving within the European Union.

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, President of the European Socialist Party, also had positive comments about the globalisation fund, but warned that the fund should not "in any way take away from the duty of member states to reinvest in education, research and development and the other preconditions for the creation of new jobs."