The purpose of the EGF is to demonstrate the Union's solidarity to workers made redundant as a result of trade liberalisation. The EGF will support people i.e. workers and its interventions will be territorially focused. Assistance will be concentrated on workers made redundant in those areas most adversely affected by economic dislocation due to changes in world trade patterns. As economic disruption can occur in all Member States, whether small or large, the interventions of the EGF are available to workers in all Member States.
Specifically, the EGF will intervene in cases where major structural changes in world trade patterns lead to a serious economic disruption such as an economic delocalisation to third countries, or to a massive increase of imports, or to a progressive decline of the EU market share in a given sector. Assistance from the EGF is aimed at the re-integration of the individuals concerned into employment, taking advantage of existing and new employment opportunities while limiting the adjustment costs for the workers, regions and localities concerned.
The EGF will provide a financial contribution for actions, as part of a coordinated package of personalised services designed to re-integrate the affected redundant workers into the labour market. It aims to finance an array of personalised support services tailored to meet the specific needs of the workers affected by redundancies. It will thus combine active measures such as job-search assistance with in-work temporary allowances: experience shows that in-work wage complementary allowances, designed to ensure that work pays, are most effective in improving participation in employment if combined with active labour market policies.
In this way, the EGF aims to contribute to establishing the conditions of flexicurity within the EU: a balance between flexibility and employment security, which seeks to improve people's chances of finding work and using new skills while at the same time promoting the flexibility required to meet the new challenges of globalisation.
The EGF will only intervene at the request of a Member State.
The new Fund complements existing policies and financial instruments, including the Community policies aiming at anticipating and accompanying restructuring. However, in contrast to the latter, the EGF combines a territorial dimension with specific and targeted assistance, focused exclusively on personalised support for the re-integration into employment of workers adversely affected by the evolution of international trade patterns.
The duration of the action and of the financial impact is indefinite, with the possibility of using up to EUR 500 million per year in current prices to be made available on a case by case basis by the budgetary authority to provide additional support for workers made redundant as a result of major structural changes in world trade patterns upon proposal from the Commission of an amending budget.
Klaus Kellersmann
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