Brussels, 13/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - The president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, put the proposal forward in February and, now, the European Commission is showing how it should be implemented. The Youth Employment Initiative, that will have €6 billion allocated to it for the years 2014-2020, is, for the first time, being given concrete operational provisions that will be presented to the heads of state and/or government at the European summit on 14 and 15 March.
This will mark the second step towards practical fulfilment of a promise. After a political agreement at the last European Council (7-8 February), the Commission proposed, on Tuesday 12 February, different ways of giving form to the Youth Employment Initiative and, in particular, a new budgetary envelope. The Commission is thus proposing that the envelope, €3 billion of which will come from the European Social Fund (ESF), with the other €3 billion being fresh money, should first and foremost be allocated to the regions most affected by youth unemployment. It should be used to implement the youth guarantee and youth employment package measures, while strengthening the other specific national programmes and ESF programmes targeting the same category of people.
The Commission proposes that all initiatives supported as part of the Youth Employment Initiative should not target systems and structures but people who are without employment and who are not studying or in training. It also says emphasis should be placed on this initiative from the outset. In order to encourage states to do this, the Commission is ready to exempt this mechanism from the performance reserve, in order to obtain tangible results speedily. (JK/transl.jl)