WRITTEN QUESTION E-0603/02 by Manuel Pérez Álvarez (PPE-DE) to the Commission. Closure of Lear group factory (Lleida province, Spain).
Date: 2002-03-06
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Spain, cessation of trading, collective dismissal, job cuts, labour law, metalworking, multinational enterprise

C 172 E/218

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

18.7.2002

internal market provisions are not
health consequences of smoking, with a view to ensuring that
undermined. In this process, the Commission has to submit to the Regulatory Committee established by
Article 10(1) of the above Directive a draft of the measures to be taken, on which the Committee has to
give an opinion.

The Commission has started work on the establishment of such rules and will do its utmost to respect the
above time frame. However, the Commission would like to remind the Honourable Member of the fact
that when the above Directive was adopted, the Commission made a formal statement in which it drew
the Parliament’s and the Council’s attention to ‘the difficulty it envisages in respecting the deadline imposed
in Article 5(3) of this text in which to obtain an opinion from the Committee established in Article 10 and
subsequently to adopt rules on the use of colour photographs’.

(1) OJ L 194, 18.7.2001.

(2002/C 172 E/233)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0603/02

by Manuel Pérez Álvarez (PPE-DE) to the Commission

Subject: Closure of Lear group factory (Lleida province, Spain)

(6 March 2002)

The factory of the multinational group Lear in Cervera (Lleida/Lérida province, Spain) appears certain to
close in the near future.

This factory has been paying the lowest possible wages for the metal sector. 80 % of its workers are
women. Given above-average profit levels in excess of EUR 300 million over the last seven years, the
decision to cease operations may be considered a clear case of a measure that is not and cannot be justified
in social terms.

What measures are envisaged to ensure that decisions of this nature are not made in the face of the rights
of workers and, more generally, of the less-favoured strata and of regions and communities for whom
establishments such as this are the main source of employment?

What measures have been decided in this specific case?

Answer given by Ms Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(23 April 2002)

Several Community Directives lay down procedures for informing and consulting workers’ representatives
that may be applicable to closures of enterprises: Council Directive 98/59/EC of 20 July 1998 on the
approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies (1) and 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 (2). 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 @ Joint declaration of the European Parliament, the Council and
the Commission on employee representation (3) will supplement the Community provisions in this area.

However, the material requirements that enterprises need to meet when they decide to close down
production units are not covered by any Community instrument. Nevertheless, on 15 January 2002 the
Commission decided to launch a Community-level consultation of the social partners on anticipating and
managing change: a dynamic approach to the social aspects of corporate restructuring. In so doing, the
Commission is inviting the social partners to engage in a dialogue on this important topic, including the
question of strengthening the adaptability and employability of workers, especially as far as vocational
retraining is concerned.

(1) OJ L 225, 12.8.1998.
(2) OJ L 254, 30.9.1994.
(3) OJ L 80, 23.3.2002.