MEPs kick-start bid for globalisation fund

MEPs will on Monday (10 July) consider a report on a much-hyped globalisation adjustment fund, which is supposed to offer compensation to regions suffering from the effects of globalisation.

Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, the French centre-right MEP will present to the European Parliament's employment and social affairs committee a first draft of a report along with an explanatory memorandum setting out her support for the fund.

The memorandum warns that, unless Europe equips itself with the economic and political tools necessary to meet global challenges, wealth creation will collapse, social problems will multiply and Europe will lose its place in history.

She argues that the fund, about which member states such as Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia and the Netherlands were sceptical, is needed to meet the challenges of a new world shaped by the technological revolution of the late nineties and the resultant changes in international markets.

EU leaders backed the idea of the fund at their informal summit at Hampton Court in the UK last October, but reservations linger over its deployment. A Swedish diplomat said: "It is important to make sure the fund will only intervene in cases related to major structural changes in world trade patterns.

"We have concerns on the types of actions that should be funded. We need to make sure the main responsibilities of member states are not taken over. The fund should only provide added value in exceptional cases."

A Danish diplomat signalled that the fund was still under negotiation, with member states working together to ensure clear and strict conditions for its use.

Bachelot-Narquin will next week highlight that the US has had its own compensation fund, Trade Adjustment Assistance, since 1962. The EU fund will be similar in approach to its US counterpart, but will set much stricter conditions for intervention, requiring proof of a direct link between redundancies and their impact on regional economies.

The memorandum points out that, in any case, the fund will not be the first of its kind in Europe, having been preceded by a much older model offering aid to

MEPs will on Monday (10 July) consider a report on a much-hyped globalisation adjustment fund, which is supposed to offer compensation to regions suffering from the effects of globalisation.