Brussels, 24/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - Devising a “European Investment Plan” to create new jobs, reallocating EU structural funds to projects for young people, and introducing a “European Youth Guarantee” to ensure that young people are not jobless for more than four months, are among the proposals set out by MEPs in a resolution on measures to tackle youth unemployment, adopted in Strasbourg on Thursday 24 May.
While average unemployment in the EU is 10%, youth unemployment reached 22.1%, in early 2011 - up from 14.7% in 2008 - the European Parliament (EP) highlighted in adopting the resolution tabled by Pervenche Berès (S&D, France). The employment situation varies considerably from one member state to another, from well below 10% in some countries to 50% in those hardest hit by the crisis.
Parliament welcomed the Commission's “Youth Opportunities Initiative” communication but MEPs say they “have serious doubts as to whether the scale of the actions proposed is proportionate to the gravity of the current youth unemployment crisis experienced in many member states”. The position of young people is highly dependent on the overall economic situation, and MEPs urge member states to devise a “European Investment Plan” to boost inclusive sustainable and job-rich growth.
At the European Council on 30 January 2012, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso announced that €82 billion in EU structural funds, out of the total €347 billion for 2007-2013, had yet to be allocated and could be redeployed. MEPs regret that, after four years of crisis, this €82 billion has remained unspent. They urge the Commission to prioritise redeployment of a substantial part of that money into projects for young people and in particular involving SMEs, to improve the opportunities of a decent job for young people. They also ask the Commission to consider increasing the EU share of project costs co-funded with national governments of the eight EU countries worst affected by youth unemployment (Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy).
In a resolution passed in 2010, Parliament proposed that the Council and Commission devise a “European Youth Guarantee”, along the lines of what already exists in some member states, such as Austria, to give every young person in the EU the right to a job, an apprenticeship, further training or a job combined with training, if they have been out of work for four months. MEPs also called on the Commission and Council to “set up a European Quality Charter on Traineeships, to ensure their educational value and avoid exploitation”. In the resolution, MEPs welcome the Commission's plan to present a proposal to the Council on these two instruments by the end of 2012 and strongly urge member states to approve the proposals by the end of 2012. (LC/transl.rt)