The government was advised yesterday to apply for special funds from the European Globalisation Fund to help textiles workers who received notices of termination this week – 570 employees will lose their job in August because their company, VF Malta, is relocating to Asia.

Labour MEP Joseph Muscat and Chris Agius, MLP spokesman for industry, said the fund became operative this year. It provides cash for measures taken by governments when a large number of jobs are lost because of such relocations.

What had happened this week and some months ago was a serious social and economic shock for the country and qualified for supplementary aid from the globalisation fund, Mr Muscat and Mr Agius said.

The government could apply for temporary assistance for the workers, for re-training, and schemes for elderly workers who lost their job. The aid could amount to half the costs involved.

The general rule was that there had to be the loss of at least 1,000 jobs but there was also a special provision for small countries such as Malta. The fund amounted to 500 million, 15 per cent of which were for crises in small markets such as Malta.

Mr Muscat and Mr Agius expressed doubt about how far EU directives about worker consultation had been followed in the case of the VF plant in Malta. Directive 98/59/EC, for instance, related to collective termination of employment and laid down that there should be prior consultation with the workers’ representatives when at least 30 were being given the sack in companies which employed at least 300.