The European Union is ready to provide financial help to workers laid off by General Motors' European offshoot Opel at the Antwerp factory in Belgium, dpa quoted the European Commission as saying today. As part of a restructuring plan of the struggling carmaker, Opel chief Nick Reilly announced on Thursday that the Antwerp plant will to close in mid-2010, putting 2,600 jobs at risk and provoking fierce reactions amongst local trade unions and government officials. "At first sight, if Belgian authorities apply for it, the European globalisation fund (EGF) would be available," commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde-Hansen told journalists in Brussels. The EGF was created in 2007 to help workers laid off as a result of globalisation find another job. In recent months its remit was expanded to intervene in the case of industries severely hit by the economic crisis. Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso is set to meet on Friday Kris Peeters, the first minister of Flanders - the Dutch speaking part of Belgium where the Antwerp site is located - at the EU executive's headquarters in Brussels. According to earlier reports, Opel bosses asked for a total of 2.7 million euros (3.8 million dollars) in state aid to the governments of the European countries where Opel factories are based. The carmaker produces vehicles in Germany, Belgium, Spain and Poland, as well as in Britain under the Vauxhall badge. However, a spokesman for the EU's competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said that Brussels received "no notification" for any national government aid in favour of General Motors. Jonathan Todd also indicated that the EU executive had not obtained yet the "definitive" restructuring plan Opel executives had promised in December, during an informal meeting with European industry ministers.
