Mobilisation of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund: technical assistance by the Commission

The European Parliament adopted by 557 votes to 76, with 23 abstentions, a resolution on the proposal for a decision to mobilise the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) for an amount of EUR 610 000 in commitment and payment appropriations in the framework of a request for technical assistance at the initiative of the Commission application (EGF/2011/000 TA 2011).

The European Parliament recalls that the Union has set up the appropriate legislative and budgetary instruments to provide additional support to workers who are suffering from the consequences of major structural changes in world trade patterns and to assist their reintegration into the labour market. It underlines that the Union's financial assistance to workers made redundant should be dynamic and made available as quickly and efficiently as possible. Moreover, it states that up to 0.35% of the annual EGF amount can be made available each year for technical assistance at the initiative at the Commission, in order to finance monitoring, information, administrative and technical support, audit, control and evaluation activities necessary to implement the EGF Regulation, including the provision of information and guidance for the Member States in using, monitoring and evaluation the EGF.

Against this background, the Commission has requested that the Fund be mobilised in order to cover its administrative needs for monitoring and information on the implementation of the EGF, creation of a knowledge base, which would allow applications and their processing to be speeded up, administrative and technical support, exchange of successful practices among the Member States and mid-term evaluation of the EGF.

Given that the application fulfils the eligibility criteria set up by the EGF Regulation, Parliament approves the proposed Decision annexed to the draft resolution. It calls on the institutions involved to make the necessary efforts to improve procedural and budgetary arrangements in order to accelerate the mobilisation of the EGF. It welcomes the fact that, following repeated requests from the Parliament, for the first time the 2011 budget shows payment appropriations of EUR 47 608 950 on the EGF budget line 04 05 01.