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The European Commission has proposed to provide France with €918,000 from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) to help 760 former workers of GAD, an enterprise which slaughters pigs and processes pork. The proposal now goes to the European Parliament and the EU's Council of Ministers for approval.
Background
In its application, France underlined that annual consumption of pork and pork products decreased in Europe due to the global financial and economic crisis, from 43 kg per inhabitant in 2007 to 39 kg in 2013. This in turn caused a decline in the production of pork and pork processing by abattoirs such as GAD.
For more than five years, GAD faced price pressure from both farmers struggling to cope with the increased price of feed, and consumers struggling to cope with reduced income, resulting in serious financial difficulties.
GAD's last profitable year was 2008. In 2013, the company closed three of its five production sites, and was placed into receivership, with €65 million accumulated losses between 2010 and June 2013.
The closed sites were located in Lampaul and Saint-Martin (both in Brittany) and Saint-Nazaire (in Loire-Atlantique). The redundancies have a significant adverse impact on the regional economy, in particular in Brittany, where employment is more dependent on the agri-food sector than in the rest of France (11 % in Brittany as opposed to 5 % on average in France).
Friday October 24, 2014/ EC/ European Union.
http://europa.eu/rapid
