Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-12-14-Speech-1-154"
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"en.20091214.17.1-154"2
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"Ladies and gentlemen, in my opinion, the debate has shown clearly that the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund is functioning and we are able to state that it has now been used several dozen times and it has always brought considerable benefit to the people making use of the fund. As a Commissioner, I have always tried to familiarise myself with results in the field, which is not proper analysis of course but merely direct experience, and I was delighted to see how positively the fund is rated in those areas where it has operated.
The debate has thrown up many questions of a serious nature which demand a response and which call for a clear and realistic opinion. First is the idea that the fund can be used only for big companies. Experience fortunately shows that the fund can be used by anyone, regardless of whether a large or small country or a large or small firm is involved and this was our original intention. The newly adjusted rules clearly provide the possibility for using this fund also in the case of employees of small and medium-sized enterprises which are in areas or fields affected by the crisis. The fund thus operates without discrimination and does not disadvantage anyone.
I would also like to emphasise a fundamental characteristic of the fund, which is to help people rather than companies and, from this perspective, we cannot therefore see it as a life support machine for companies that have no realistic hope of functioning in economic terms, but rather the contrary. The fund helps people who have been made redundant to find work quickly in those areas where it exists. It is therefore a fund which, in principle, implements and facilitates restructuring.
Concerns over gender inequality were expressed in one speech and I think it was the speech of Mrs Harkin. This inequality, which really does exist at the level of reports, merely proves that the crisis, especially in its first phase, has markedly affected the male-dominated industries. Today also, we are talking about the automobile industry and the construction industry, in other words, two male-dominated industries. In overall figures, therefore, the fund has provided more assistance to men. The crisis has changed the structure of the labour market in a specific way and I noted the statement of President Obama, who declared that at the end of this year, the majority of workers actively engaged on the labour market in the United States would be women. Also in the United States, therefore, the crisis has produced a very striking result in industries dominated by men. As far as the question is concerned, there is no gender inequality at all in the concept or the structure of the fund.
The debate also threw up a number of ideas, of course, on how it might be possible to amend and improve the fund. I have to say that the Commission does not of course regard the fund as something immutable which has emerged like Pallas Athena from the head of Zeus. It is a human institution, which can always be made better on the basis of experience and debate. Thus, in my opinion, there are no fundamental obstacles here.
Another question was raised on the issue of the specific method of financing, in other words, the integration of the fund within the budget as independent budget items. This is surely a question that will be discussed at a political level but from a financial perspective, it was not possible to achieve a result in this way and, in my opinion, the fact that we mobilised resources by a different but effective method is, in itself, valuable.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say that it is undoubtedly true that the amended rules and the pressure of the crisis have led to a situation where there will be more individual cases but, as I have already stated, the Commission accepts the weight of the arguments on the side of adopting a case-by-case approach and we will therefore proceed under this method.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the MEPs from the Committee on Budgets and all of the MEPs involved in this issue because it has emerged clearly from the debate that consideration has been given to all of the contentious matters that are present in every decision of such complexity. In my opinion, it also emerged clearly from the debate and from the proposal of the Commission that all of these cases fall within the scope of the globalisation adjustment fund. I am delighted therefore that your debate has confirmed the view of the Commission and I expect that the vote will go in the same direction, or at least I hope it will."@en1
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