Youth unemployment
EU governments' green light for European youth guarantee welcome
EU employment and social affairs ministers today adopted a European Youth Guarantee Scheme which ensures that all young people under the age of 25 in Europe are entitled to receive a good-quality offer of employment, education, apprenticeship or traineeship within a period of four months after becoming unemployed or leaving formal education. The Greens have been strongly pushing for EU measures to address the high levels of youth unemployment in Europe and have been advocating a 'youth guarantee scheme' from the outset. As such, the group welcomed today's decision, with Green employment spokesperson and European Parliament draftsperson on the youth guarantee Emilie Turunen (MEP, Denmark) stating:
"We warmly welcome today's decision by EU governments to adopt the Youth Guarantee Scheme, an idea which the Greens have been to the fore in advocating (1). The European youth guarantee scheme sets out concrete measures that would provide an EU-wide approach to tackling this transnational problem, such as through training and apprenticeships. It is now important that this scheme is implemented across EU member states.
"With crisis-hit EU member states those most affected by rocketing youth unemployment, EU support is essential. The 7.5 million young people in the EU currently not in employment, education or training need to be given some kind of perspective and the youth guarantee does just that. The targeting of EU structural funds, particularly the European Social Fund, with view to supporting these measures, such as training schemes, is essential, as is the earmarking of €6 billion for fighting youth unemployment under the forthcoming EU financial framework from 2014-20."
(1) The report by Green MEP Emilie Turunen adopted by the European Parliament in 2009 can be found at:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2009/2221%28INI%29&l=en
