Milan, 09/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - Although European heads of state and government reached an agreement on Wednesday 8 October on the principle of facilitating and simplifying access to the EU youth employment initiative, whilst “improving” its pre-financing rate, currently set at 1%, they were unable to explain exactly how this could be done and whether it was completely realistic.
The third European youth Summit in Milan, following that in Berlin (July 2013, EUROPE 10879) and Paris (November 2013, EUROPE 10961), looked a bit like a witch-hunt with the final objective appearing to be making “Brussels” into a scapegoat for all the difficulties the member states are having in tackling 5 million young Europeans unemployed and finding them a decent way of finding a job. This appeared to be a question on the lips of many senior officials at the European Commission at the end of the summit.
The Milan meeting was attended by around 20 heads of state and government and preceded the employment ministers' meeting. Its main aim was to examine the European mechanism for combating youth unemployment, namely, the youth employment initiative. This initiative's first aim is to help set up a “youth guarantee” mechanism in every country by targeting all young people aged under 25 or 30 (to be decided by the member states themselves) and finding them a decent job, training or placement in the four months after their arrival on the labour market.
The amount of time available for discussions on the subject, however, was sadly lacking in Milan. The main reason for this was that without the validation required by the European Commission for the operational programmes of the member states involved, there is not a lot left that can be done at a European level. The only thing possible, perhaps, consists in attempting to use the length of the procedures to channel the appropriate European funding accordingly, which is precisely what the European leaders attempted to do in Milan.
The framework for action in this initiative established in April 2013, together with the national operational programme projects presented to the European Commission, now account for all of the €6 billion planned for the 2014-2015 period. The swiftness with which this was implemented was welcomed by the Commission, which was quick to use this occasion to offer its congratulations for this accomplishment. Its outgoing president, José-Manuel Barroso, subsequently announced in Milan that, “€800 million had so far been spent”. This enthusiasm, however, was only partly shared by some member states. France and Italy are among the main beneficiaries of this initiative, with combined fund allocation of a quarter of all total funding (€1.5 billion) and are now highlighting finance “flexibility and access” problems and believe that the pre-financing rates set at 1% are too low. They received the backing of European Parliament President Martin Schulz, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on these points. Germany is not a beneficiary of this initiative.
According to French President François Hollande, the Milan summit helped to, “obtain simplification of procedures and reduced the delays” in the use of the initiative, “in a way that allows us to shift more quickly and do better in the area of jobs for our young people”. He believes that this was necessary because certain countries were “unable or did not know how to” attract funds for creating jobs to young people, despite the high level of unemployment. He also said that this was in addition to a second decision that helped promote, “the pre-financing of these programmes so that they could be set up in each country more easily and more quickly”. Merkel made a similar observation and underlined the fact that funding for youth guarantees should not create national deficits, which was why efficient pre-financing and swift reimbursement was important. No figures on this question were put forward during this meeting but it was stated that they were prepared to open the debate on the issue.
On the question of increasing youth guarantee funds, Hollande appears to be aligned on the German position. The day before, however, he referred to the need to sustain the initiative through additional funding of €20 billion for the 2016-20 period (EUROPE 11171) but since then he asserted that before discussing new funding, the funding already released had to be used up. To some extent he paraphrased the ideas expressed by Merkel, for whom, “the problem is not that there is not enough money but that this money is not being released from the coffers because it is difficult to access it”.
What does the Commission think about it, given that it is directly being targeted? Barroso has nothing against the idea of speeding up the initiative, quite on the contrary. Nonetheless, he considers that the problem involves these rather inflexible rules that have to be resolved by “the governments” and which could lead to a rethink regarding the entire “multiannual financial framework”.
The Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, László Andor, qualified somewhat to Europe, the fact that the accusations focused on the high degree of rigidity in the youth employment initiative and claimed that it was really a false debate. France's operational programme was adopted by the Commission after four weeks and that of Italy after just four days. The Commission has no choice but to wait for the member states to submit their programmes to it. Another option exists involving the signing of partnerships agreements. 17 member states have done this with the Commission and Andor does not see what else he can do.
Schulz believes that there is a problem regarding access to funds and that it is up to the European institutions and member states to carry out their respective “examination of conscience”. According to one European source, however, European leaders are quite simply finding it difficult to publicly admit that the “youth guarantee” is a sizeable structural reform and that its implementation will subsequently require more time; more time to see what the first effects of this will be on youth unemployment rates. The Commission pointed out in an information memo published on Wednesday 8 October that they should not forget that, “in the absence of global economic growth, it would be impossible for an employment reform to resolve the unemployment crisis”. (JK)