The European Commission issued a new legislative proposal on the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF - Regulation (EC) No 1927/2006) for the period 2014 – 2020 (COM(2011) 608 final). The EGF intends to continue to finance a number of active labour measures that form part of a coordinated package of personalized services designed to re-integrate redundant workers into the market. The main changes include: the extension of the scope of the EGF to include new categories of workers; inclusion of the agriculture sector; simplification and speeding up of the application phase; a more result-oriented approach. The analysis has revealed that some measures need to be revised since, for instance, the role of the Regions still seems to be marginal and not fully exploited; some procedures – application, reporting and monitoring, and controls and audits – need to be simplified; the inclusion of agriculture as one of the eligible sectors may pose an issue regarding the financial balance of the intervention; and, finally, the more result-oriented approach risks being a threat to the effectiveness of the EGF, rather than an opportunity for improvement.  

The report of the study is available here.