Globalisation fund may benefit Volkswagen workers

Commission President José Manuel Barroso said: "This fund is a sign of the Union's solidarity towards those affected by trade-adjustment redundancies, because we want a competitive, but also a fair Europe." 

EU Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities Commissioner Vladimír Špidla added: "Trade openness has losers as well as winners. The Union cannot be indifferent to the enormous economic and social impact of globalisation." 

Eurochambres, the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry, however believes that the adoption of the globalisation fund "is a mistake", saying it sends the "wrong signal to European entrepreneurs". It states: "This fund may give the impression that we can protect Europe from the rest of the world, which we cannot." The association also questioned how the fund will work in practice, saying that other existing tools, such as the European Social Fund, could have dealt with the problem more effectively. 

The Association of crafts, trades and SMEs (UEAPME)  commented: “The political justification of such a fund can easily be understood but the economic justification is more questionable," adding that the creation of a new fund risks "setting up a new bureaucratic process with very few results because of the strict criteria in terms of number of redundancies and the very complicated procedure". 

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) welcomed the increased flexibilities, saying that the adopted text should allow workers who become victims of companies moving within the EU – such as in the Volkswagen case – to benefit from assistance. It nevertheless criticised the limited role of the social partners in the implementation of the fund and added that there is still room for improvement as regards the redundancy criteria, which, as it stands, could exclude certain smaller regions and countries. The Confederation also stressed the need for preventive action, in the form of an active and dynamic industrial policy. 

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.