IP/07/1973
Brussels, 20 December 2007
€ 14.8 million from EU Globalisation Fund to help German and Finnish mobile phone workers The European Commission has today made payments to Germany and Finland from the EU's Globalisation adjustment Fund (EGF). The payment of € 12.8 million to Germany will help some 3,300 workers made redundant at three production sites of BenQ, a mobile phone manufacturer, to get back into work as quickly as possible. The payment of € 2.03 million to Finland will aim to do the same for some 1,000 workers made redundant at Perlos, a mobile phone components manufacturer in North Karelia. Vladimír Špidla, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities said: "I'm delighted that these payments from our globalisation fund will help the redundant workers find their way back into employment. In Munich, Kamp-Lintfort and Bocholt, and in North Karelia, a remote region close to the Russian border, the support offered by the Fund will be of considerable help to the workers as they embark on new careers".
The applications from the German and Finnish authorities (see IP/07/1412) were made in the context of a general trend towards relocating production for mobile phones and accessories, mostly to Asia.
The German application relates to redundancies in the two German subsidiaries of the Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer BenQ in Munich (1,342 workers), Kamp-Lintfort (1,719) and Bocholt (242). In December 2006, BenQ withdrew financial support from the two companies, resulting in a total of 3,300 workers being made redundant in the three production sites. The contribution requested from the EGF in the application for the BenQ workers was € 12.8 million.
The Finnish application relates to redundancies in two Finnish production plants of Perlos, a manufacturer of mobile phone components. Some 1,000 redundancies were caused by the decision to discontinue production activities in Finland and to close down the two Perlos factories located in Joensuu and Kontiolahti, in the North Karelia region, in September 2007. The contribution requested from the EGF in the application for the Perlos workers was € 2.03 million.
So far, there have been four applications approved and paid under the Fund since its launch in January 2007. An application from Malta for textile workers was recently approved for presentation to the Budgetary Authority. Five further EGF applications, three from Italy, and one each from Portugal and Spain, are currently being analysed by the European Commission. Decisions on these will be taken in 2008.
The EGF is part of the European policy on globalisation which helps workers with active labour market measures after unexpected redundancies. It may give a financial contribution to a Member State in cases where workers 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.
In 2005 Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Commissioner Vladimír Špidla launched the Fund as an instrument of solidarity, to help workers affected by redundancies resulting from changes in world trade patterns find their way back into employment. For more information about the EGF, see
http://ec.europa.eu/egf A Video News Release on the European Globalisation adjustment Fund is available:
http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/video_prod_en.cfm?type=detail&prodid=4097
