Brussels, 23/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - Since Tuesday 21 April, the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU, has had a mandate for beginning negotiations with the European Parliament and European Commission on the legislative proposal to increase pre-financing rates for the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI), as we previously announced (see EUROPE 11297).
The three European institutions will therefore meet up again at the negotiating table to examine the text they support and which none of them are seeking to significantly amend. This is therefore a formality before this legislative proposal is introduced. It will enable the Commission to transfer not the €67 million in pre-financing as initially planned but almost €1 billion, to the member states affected.
In a press release, the Latvia Minister for Finance, Janis Reirs, stated: “The significant increase in advance payments reflects our strong commitment to tackle youth unemployment in Europe. In fact, the lack of pre-financing is currently one of the main hurdles preventing the €6.4 billion from the youth employment initiative from being quickly mobilised. The Latvian presidency will now work with the European Parliament to ensure that the new rules are adopted as quickly as possible”. (Jan Kordys)