WRITTEN QUESTION E-3059/02

by Luciano Caveri (ELDR) to the Commission

(25 October 2002)

Subject: Crisis at Fiat

The serious economic crisis faced by the Italian car maker Fiat comes on top of the many other problems in large companies that have shaken the European economy in recent months. The need for radical industrial restructuring raises major concerns about the European economy as a whole and, in particular, the risk of the heavy job losses. The Fiat crisis is likely to involve many firms supplying components in the automobile sector, producing a multiplier effect with worrying consequences.

Does the Commission intend to make a thorough assessment of the situation and bring forward proposals designed to find solutions to this very serious economic crisis?

Answer given by Mrs Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(3 December 2002)

The Managing Change Report of the High Level Expert Group on Industrial Change (the Gyllenhammer group) set up in the wake of the major plant closure at Renault Vilvorde in 1997, stated in 1998 that change can be positive if properly anticipated.

The European Monitoring Centre on Change (EMCC) was therefore set up in the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in October 2001 to address issues raised by industrial change.

The EMCC is one of the main measures proposed in the Commission's June 2000 Social Policy Agenda and responds to calls by the Commission's High Level Expert Group on Industrial Change. The EMCC's objective is to provide the tools for key actors in European social policy to make more informed decisions about managing the processes of change.

In addition to that, the Union has over the years developed policies and instruments aimed at ensuring that corporate restructuring is done in a socially acceptable way. As a result of that on-going policy, every restructuring operation must be preceded by effective information and consultation of employees' representatives with the aim of avoiding or attenuating its social impact, in accordance with Community Directives on Collective Redundancies(1), Transfers of Undertakings(2), European Works Councils(3) and Information and Consultation(4).

The Commission has also launched in January 2002 a major initiative requesting the European-level social partners to establish and develop a set of principles which should govern restructuring. The Commission hopes that the social partners decide to take up that important issue.

(1) Council Directive 98/59/EC of 20 July 1998 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies. (This Directive consolidates Directives 75/129/EEC and 92/56/EEC), OJ L 225, 12.8.1998.

(2) Council Directive 2001/23/EC of 12 March 2001 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the safeguarding of employees' rights in the event of transfers of undertakings, businesses or parts of undertakings or businesses, OJ L 82, 22.3.2001.

(3) Council Directive 94/45/EC of 22 September 1994 on the establishment of a European Works Council or a procedure in Community-scale undertakings and Community-scale groups of undertakings for the purposes of informing and consulting employees, OJ L 254, 30.9.1994.

(4) Directive 2002/14/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2002 establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the European Community, OJ L 80, 23.3.2002.