Malta to apply soon for EU globalisation funds

Malta is soon expected to submit an official application to the European Commission to tap funds aimed at helping laid-off workers.

The money, if granted, will be used to help them find alternative employment, particularly through training and the learning of new skills.

Over the past week it was announced that 570 workers are to be made redundant from VF Corporation, a denim manufacturing firm, and another 113 from textile manufacturer Bortex.

Government sources said yesterday that the government was drawing up a plan to present to Brussels in the coming weeks to be evaluated by the European Globalisation Fund (EGF) authorities.

The process is a highly technical one and funds will not be allocated overnight.

"We are already preparing Malta's case. However, this is not a straightforward process where you apply for funds and you get them the next day as some unions are trying to give the impression.

"There is a whole bureaucratic process to be followed which has to be examined by the Commission and decided by the Council and the European Parliament," the sources said.

Applications to the fund must be submitted by member states and not by the companies affected by redundancies. There are four main stages to the process.

When a member state is made aware of large-scale redundancies caused by the effects of globalisation, it should immediately mobilise its employment services - the Employment and Training Corporation in Malta's case - to design a plan to help the workers affected.

Once the plan is ready, the country may submit an application to the EU for part-funding through the EGF.

The European Commission will assess the plan and propose it to the EU's Budgetary Authority (the Council and the European Parliament) for its approval.

If the Council and Parliament approve the proposal, the member state may get up to 50 per cent of the cost of its action plan.

The government is hoping that the European Commission will evaluate its application positively so that the textile workers made redundant last week will get all the help needed to be reintegrated into the labour market.

Incidentally, the first recommendations for disbursements from this fund, created at the beginning of this year, were announced yesterday by the Commission in Brussels.

Following redundancies in the car manufacturing sector in France last year, the EU executive recommended to the Council and the European Parliament that just under €4 million be allocated to train French workers who lost their jobs.

The Commission said that the first two EGF applications concern the French car sector and relate to suppliers of Peugeot-Citroën and Renault, respectively.

The requested contributions from the EGF are €2,558,250 in the first case and €1,258,000 in the second.

The EGF was formally set up with an annual budget of €500 million last December. Malta had fought tooth and nail to ensure that its economy, although small, would qualify for this fund.