More support for Rover from Europe
The European Commission today offered fresh cash support for the UK's West Midlands to soften the blow of the job losses at MG Rover.
The Commission has already contributed €918m (£625m) to the region from EU spending programmes, some of which may now be redirected to offset the effect on local industries of large-scale redundancies.
And a team of EU experts are now talking with Government officials about injecting more EU grants and loans into the area to boost an emergency aid package currently being assembled in London.
The EU’s commissioner for regional policy Danuta Houbner said today she was acutely aware of the impact the job losses would have in Birmingham and the West Midlands as a whole.
“The Commission wishes to be of the greatest possible assistance in this matter,” she said in Brussels.
Commission officials with expertise in regional policy, employment and social affairs spent yesterday in Birmingham in talks with officials from the UK Government Office for the West Midlands (GOWM).
A Commission statement said: “EU officials are looking urgently at how EU structural funds can be used to help, in co-operation with the GOWM – the body responsible for managing European regional development programme locally.”
The €918m (£625m) already pumped into the West Midlands in the most recent round of regional aid funding, has been targeted on boosting the area’s industrial diversity, encouraging the development of new “high-growth” industrial sectors and providing training and re-training facilities.
The funds have already helped the region reduce its dependence on traditional manufacturing, and some of the money “could now be redirected to alleviate the consequences of large scale redundancies”, said the commission statement.
It added: “The team of EU experts will also examine how EU grant finance could be combined with loans to lever additional financial resources into the emergency aid package being put in place by the UK Government.”
