Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-13-Speech-2-258"
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"en.20010313.16.2-258"2
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". – Mr President, it is true that we live in an era of industrial change and reconstruction. It is true that every day there are new acquisitions and mergers and that sometimes restructuring is synonymous with job losses. This can have tragic consequences for the social fabric of any region, but particularly those regions where there is little potential for job creation.
The Commission appreciates that citizens and workers need to feel secure in this difficult time. We believe that the cornerstone of successful adaptation to change is dialogue at all levels, based on full and transparent information.
The basic ideas that the Commission intends to highlight are as follows. The first one is that decisions and corporate restructuring are both a prerogative and a responsibility for the management. This means that, when considering action that will have social consequences, companies should always actively try to find less negative and less damaging solutions.
Secondly, when dismissals prove to be inevitable, everything possible must be done to assist with the redeployment of those concerned. This requires forward planning, timely preparation and effective management of these processes. Thirdly, nothing is more important than the social dialogue. There must be timely, effective and comprehensive information and consultation with workers' representatives and this must, of course, be before initiatives are launched or publicly announced.
Worker participation is not only a basic right but also a necessity if corporate restructuring is to be accepted. Under the existing European legislation, employee representatives in merging companies may be informed and consulted on the potential social consequences of the announced measure. There are concrete European directives which have been transposed into national law relating to collective redundancies, transfers of undertakings and European works councils.
But it is not for Europe to intervene at this stage as regards compliance with the directives. They have been duly transposed into the national law of the Member States and any conflict or litigation arising from the application of the rules should be assessed by the relevant national authorities.
In my first point I concentrated on the social dialogue and the implementation of the existing European legislation. My second point concerns the three enterprises concerned by the merger in particular, because they have considerable experience with restructuring and dealing with the social consequences and social dialogue and social partners. In particular, if social measures were to be taken to assist the workers affected in order to redeploy them, to provide them with temporary income support or remove them from the labour market by early retirement before the ECSC Treaty expires on 23 July 2002, the Commission could, at the request of the government concerned, provide additional aid under Article 56 of the Treaty. This is the aid commonly known as readaptation aid."@en1
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