92003E1406

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1406/03

by Luigi Vinci (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(23 April 2003)

Subject: Territorial employment pact at Lamezia Terme (Italy)

Knowing that:

- Over the period 1996-2001, under the Structural Funds, 89 territorial employment pacts were financed in the EU, among them that for Lamezia Terme (Italy), adopted via Decree No 948 of 29 January 1999 of the Italian Finance Ministry, on the basis of a total investment of approximately EUR 48 million funding 66 business initiatives, 30 of them dispersed over the territory of Lamezia Terme.

- The company responsible for implementing the Pact is the consortium Sviluppo ex-area Sir, also known as LameziaEuropa.

- The projects funded concerned 49 new initiatives, 16 extensions and one reopening. Thirty seven were in the manufacturing sector, 12 in the agri-industrial sector, 15 in the tourist sector and two in the services sector.

- 903 jobs were to be involved, 699 of them newly created.

- The management of LameziaEuropa claims success for the Pact, purely on the grounds that on 29 January 2003 the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti savings bank granted a new tranche of financing to the undertakings concerned.

- Lamezia Terme has a high rate of unemployment, especially among women and young people, and job security is increasingly under threat: employers are failing to honour their contracts, health and safety rules are being flouted, and moonlighting is on the increase.

- These circumstances of illegality are being exploited by organised crime in order to fund its own activities. In consequence, businesses in the area are being forced into uncomfortably close relations with local politicians, and one result of this has been the recent resignation of the municipal council.

- If there is to be proper monitoring of the investments made, job creation and full respect for the legal procedures as laid down in the Pact need to be ensured by the institutions as a matter of priority.

Can the Commission provide information on:

1. the amount invested to date;

2. the monitoring mechanisms adopted, including at EU level, with a view to verifying businesses' observance of their commitments;

3. the number of posts involved in each undertaking, and whether the possibility of those undertakings employing black labour can be excluded;

4. the measures that will be taken if it is found that the commitments made are not being observed?

Answer given by Mrs Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(26 May 2003)

The Commission would like to inform the Honourable Member that the territorial employment pact for Lamezia Terme was financed not by the Structural Funds but by national resources.

The Commission is therefore not in a position to answer the Honourable Member's questions.