The EU Council and Parliament have provisionally agreed a regulation to extend support from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund for Displaced Workers to workers facing imminent unemployment.
The purpose of the EGF is to show solidarity with workers and self-employed people who have lost their job due to company restructuring, helping them get back into employment. The new rules will apply until the end of 2027, when the current EGF programme expires.
Support measures that can benefit from EGF financing include active labour market policy measures geared towards equipping workers with the skills needed to move into a different role or find jobs, and may include training, certification of skills, job-search assistance or careers advice. At present, such support is reserved for people who have already been made redundant as a result of restructuring.
However, lay-offs caused by restructuring often occur in waves, meaning that people who are at risk of redundancy also need access to training support and would benefit from receiving it at an earlier stage, before they are dismissed.
Under the revised regulation, workers who are at imminent risk of losing their job as a result of company restructuring would also have access to support under the EGF, to reduce the rate of dismissals and help workers transition to new roles.
The agreement clarifies the scope of the revised regulation, ensuring workers at risk of imminent dismissal have access to support earlier on in the process. Under specific conditions and with the agreement of an affected enterprise, workers of its direct suppliers and down-stream producers at imminent risk of losing their job could also be included in an application. More workers could thus benefit from EGF support in a manner which is efficient and proportionate.
The agreed text also ensures sufficient safeguards, such as the possibility for member states to carry out ex-ante checks in relation to companies’ financial and administrative capacities. Member states will also have the possibility to allocate pre-financing to companies in instalments.
Moreover, the co-legislators have aimed to limit the administrative burden of the revised regulation by specifying that the Commission should produce non-binding guidance for both member states and companies.
The provisional agreement now needs to be endorsed by both the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament, before being formally adopted and entering into force upon publication in the EU’s Official Journal.
