EU Commission unveils plans for retraining fund

The European Commission today presented plans for an annual €500m fund to help workers left unemployed in the EU by restructuring due to globalisation.

Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the aid scheme was meant to soften the blow of restructuring due to increased global competition across the 25-nation European Union.

It was also to “express the Union’s solidarity toward those severely and personally affected by trade-adjustment redundancies”.

The so-called “globalisation adjustment fund” aims to offer new skills training to workers laid off or who lost their jobs due to a major company’s moving elsewhere.

EU Employment Commissioner Vladimir Spidla said under the plan, national governments could ask Brussels to release funds for laid-off workers if there is a “link between job losses and significant structural changes in global trade patterns”.

Barroso said the fund would help boost job growth in Europe.