Brussels, 09/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - There should be a binding Europe-wide youth guarantee for young people up to the age of 25 in place by 2013 and ringfencing of €10 billion of EU structural funding to tackle youth unemployment. These are the main proposals put forward by the Party of European Socialists (PES) in its report on youth unemployment, published on Thursday 9 February. With unemployment among the under-25s standing at 22.1% - 5.5 million young people throughout the EU (Eurostat figures for December 2011) - the young have been particularly hard hit by the economic and financial crisis. With no great likelihood of change for the better, the PES proposes that a model which is already being used, for example, in Austria and Finland, be applied across the EU to address this problem. A European youth guarantee would require all member states to offer a job, further education or work-focused training to all young people under the age of 25 (or 30 for young people who have recently graduated) within four months of leaving education or becoming unemployed. PES Secretary General Philip Cordery says that a guarantee of this sort “is based on a simple social democratic principle - when a citizen is in trouble, the state must help”. (JK/transl.rt)