Elisabeth Schroedter, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – (DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if you expect me to join in singing the praises of this Globalisation Adjustment Fund, then you are making a mistake, for, as we recall, the fund was made necessary by the unwillingness of the Commission and the Council to include consideration of the social dimension in their international trade policy from the very outset.

If European economic policy does not run in tandem with social cohesion, then the fund is, in essence, a fire extinguisher, one reliant on modest, indeed minimal resources in a reserve the funds for which have to be collected together as and when European policy, being socially unbalanced, has failed. This House was then left with no option other than to help establish this fund, but it would have been better if the Council had topped up the Budget with more money for the long-term restructuring and modernisation of, and job creation in, regions and sectors, so the rapporteur, Mrs Bachelot-Narquin, really does deserve gratitude for having – in the face of resistance from both this House and the Council – ensured that a draft with real improvements in it can become, in a single reading, the legal basis for this Fund.

It really is good that she has agreed to our amendments. This House has done away with discrimination against older workers and enabled them to have the same opportunities for continued employment as their younger colleagues; it has caused the same weight to be given to the principle of gender mainstreaming as it receives in the European Social Fund, and – crucially – this Fund has been enabled to make microloans enabling workers to acquire the capital they need if they are facing unemployment and want to become self-employed for lack of any alternative – and that is precisely the point: they have no alternative, because Europe’s trade policy has been wrongheaded from the word go.

In this area, too, we have supported the rapporteur, since she has done her bit to improve the opportunities for making use of this fund.