15 March 2011 – Keith Taylor, the Green MEP for Hampshire and the South East, and Peter Skinner, Labour MEP for Hampshire and the South East, will meet EU Employment Commissioner, László Andor, in Brussels later today to demand that a €12m (over £10m) regeneration grant to Twinings, the British tea company, is blocked by the EU Commission (1).
The MEPs will be joined at this urgent meeting by a representative from the Usdaw union, which represents workers at Twinings’ Andover plant. Together they will argue that EU regeneration funding is being misused to subsidise the relocation of jobs at Twinings’ plant in Andover to a new factory in Poland, taking jobs away from Hampshire.
The regeneration grant, which has been approved by the EU Commission, is to help fund a new €45m (£37.7m) factory in Poland. Twinings is closing its factory in North Shields and cutting jobs at its remaining UK tea production facilities in Andover, Hampshire. Operations will be transferred to the new Polish factory and Twinings plan to expand an existing Chinese site.
The MEPs will also be asking for workers made redundant in this process to be given financial assistance from the EU’s Globalisation Adjustment Fund, designed to help workers who suffer when factories re-locate.
Keith Taylor has challenged the Commission over this decision in several formal written questions (2). Commenting ahead of today’s meeting Mr Taylor said: “It is unfair and against the intended purpose of the EU’s regeneration funding to use EU funds to subsidise the relocation of Twinings’ production to Poland. Twinings is a well regarded British company and they are insulting the workers in Andover by trying to use taxpayer’s money to pay for a process which results in the loss of British jobs.
He added: “I am calling on the Commission to block the payment of this funding and to urgently look at whether EU funds can be used to help those workers whose jobs will be lost as a result of this process.“
Mr Skinner who has fought this process from the beginning, added:
“We should be using money from the EU to create jobs for British workers and support British industry and there should be nothing more British than tea.”
“Twinings has tested the loyalty of it long-established customers and its workers. It is time the Commission put a stop to it. Regeneration funds were not intended to support shipping jobs out of the country.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
(1) On 4 October 2010 the EU approved a €12 million grant from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to Twinings’ Polish subsidiary company which is wholly owned by Associated British Foods (ABF).
(2). Written questions were submitted to the commission on 22 September 2010 – http://bit.ly/iiqtc3 and 3 December 2010 – http://bit.ly/i0xR78
