Around 1,100 former furniture and textile workers in Lithuania will receive EU aid worth €1.2 million following a vote by Parliament on Thursday.

Around 1,100 former furniture and textile workers in Lithuania will receive EU aid worth €1.2 million following a vote by Parliament on Thursday. The aid will finance measures such as training, job-search assistance and business start-ups.
The plans also needed to be approved by the Council of Ministers, which happened on Monday 22 March.  With Thursday's vote in plenary, a total of 1,127 workers will now receive aid worth €1.8 million, of which the European Globalisation Fund will pay €1.2 million. Of the 1,127 workers, 491 used to work at 45 companies in the clothing sector and 636 were employed by 49 furniture manufacturing firms.

Three other applications to the European Globalisation Adjustment fund have been approved so far in 2010: one from Germany (former employees at the Karmann industry) and two from Lithuania (for construction workers and for ex-employees at the refrigerator producer Snaigė).

With these two new payments, a total of €8,761,966 will have been paid out from the 2010 EU budget under the Globalisation Fund, leaving just over €491 million available under the Fund for the rest of the year.

The two reports, both drafted by Barbara Matera (EPP, IT), were approved by overwhelming majorities.