Brussels, 21/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - “Disappointment” was the word most often used by MEPs who spoke in the European Parliament plenary session debate in Strasbourg on Tuesday 21 October on the outcome of the informal European summit in Milan devoted to youth employment (see EUROPE 11173). Disappointment is also the feeling in Paris and Berlin, which recently put forward four ideas, in an informal joint document, to improve the youth employment initiative.
During the Parliamentary debate, no one escaped censure. The member states were accused either of not doing enough (no growth recovery programmes) or of doing too much (too much spending or too many inadequate labour market reforms). The Council of the EU, according to some MEPs, lacks an effective vision to properly address what is still the priority - reducing the unemployment rate among young people which remains stubbornly around 23% on average across the EU. The Commission is too slow in taking action to assist the member states in implementing the youth guarantee mechanism. As MEP Jutta Steinruck (S&D, Germany) summed up, everyone is passing the blame on to everyone else.
Italian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Benedetto Della Vedova reported back to MEPs on the Milan meeting, stating that the member states called on the Commission to strengthen the youth employment initiative by seeking to entrench it and by increasing its pre-financing rate. No concrete ideas were communicated but they have been put to the Commission in a non-paper on ways to accelerate measures to fight youth unemployment in particular through the youth employment initiative, a copy of which has been obtained by EUROPE.
The fruit of the Franco-German initiative, this document seeks to “accelerate the introduction of reforms and initiatives with regard to the Youth Guarantee and to remove obstacles to the flow of Youth Employment Initiative funds”. Four ideas are advanced: (1) national operational programmes should be swiftly finalised in order to have funding released; (2) given the difficulties that surround the idea of NEET (not in education, employment or training), “we suggest a more flexible approach to the individual recognition of the NEET status and particularly to the date on which this status is received”; (3) to make access to the allocated funds more flexible, France and Germany suggest that “the Commission approve simplified cost options, for instance in the form of lump sums, to authorise certain expenditures”; (4) in order to address the issue of time lag in reimbursement of expense incurred at national level, the document suggests making use of the European Investment Bank (EIB) and its bridging loans procedure.
The Franco-German document ultimately avoids all mention of the two most delicate points: pre-financing and the sustainability of the initiative. These were not addressed for two different reasons. On the one hand, Berlin, though not alone, is reluctant to open the debate on the possibility of new funds for the period from 2016 to 2020, at least not until the current funds are used up. On the other hand, the problem of pre-financing does not affect this initiative alone. Commissioner Laszlo Andor told Parliament: “We may all agree that this level of pre-financing is low, but unfortunately it is closely linked to the overall design of the multi-annual financial framework and in particular to the very low payment ceiling for the first couple of years. The EU budget is suffering from a very severe shortage of payment appropriations, which also means that there was no room to envisage higher pre-financing rates for the youth employment initiative - at least not in the absence of a change of attitude from some member states”. (JK)