The European Commission, on the 29th May 2008, made payments totalling €3.1 million to the Portuguese and Maltese authorities from the European Globalisation adjustment Fund (EGF). This is made up of € 2.4 million to help 1,549 Portuguese auto workers get back into work as quickly as possible and a further €681,000 for 675 dismissed Maltese textile workers. The payments follow approval by the Budgetary Authority (the European Parliament and the Council) on 10 April 2008.

First presented by the Commission in January 2008, the Portuguese application coverered 1,549 redundancies in three companies: Alcoa Fujikura, in the Lisbon region; and Opel Portugal and Johnson Controls in Alentejo. All three companies closed their plants and moved the work to countries with lower logistical and transport costs. The decision reflects the situation that the fastest growing areas in the world car market are now mostly outside Europe.

The Maltese application came after two textile manufacturing companies – VF and Bortex – closed all or part of their operations in Malta. As Malta has the lowest active population of the EU, this relatively small number of redundancies had a big impact on the labour market and the application was presented for a "small labour market". This allows cases to be considered for EGF assistance even if they do not reach the normal EGF 'trigger' of 1,000 redundancies.

Vladimír Špidla, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities said: "This money will help those who have lost their jobs as the result of the impact of globalisation – in Portugal where auto companies are moving production to lower-cost countries and in Malta where the small labour market was hard hit by the loss of 675 jobs. In both countries, the payments will co-finance active labour market measures, which will help those who've lost their jobs find their way back into work".

Further information

Six applications have now been approved and paid under the The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF), for a total amount of € 21.7 million. Previous cases include redundancies in the automotive industry in France and in the mobile phone sector in Germany and Finland. The payments to Malta and Portugal are the first EGF payments in 2008. The Commission is currently analysing five further applications (four from Italy and one for Spain) and will present its assessment of these cases as soon as possible.

Established in 2006, the EGF is part of a European policy on globalisation. It may give a financial contribution to a Member State in cases where at least 1,000 workers in an enterprise, or a region and sector, are made redundant due to major structural changes in world trade patterns leading to substantially increased imports into the EU, or a rapid decline in EU market share.