Youth Unemployment

More people and regions would benefit from the EU Youth Employment Initiative thanks to proposed changes made by the Employment and Social Affairs Committee on Tuesday. This initiative is to give effect to the European Youth Guarantee, whereby any young person in the EU who has been unemployed for more than four months is to be offered a job, training or an apprenticeship. The Employment and Social Affairs Committee voted to extend the age range of the Youth Guarantee to cover under 30 year olds (the Commission proposal is for under 25 year olds).

According to the European Commission proposal, the Youth Employment Initiative would be allocated a €6 billion budget for 2014-2020, €3 billion of which would come from the European Social Fund (ESF) and the other half from cohesion policy. However, these figures are subject to an agreement being reached on the EU’s long-run budget, the Multi-annual Financial Framework.

A joint debate was held on the European Social Fund and the common provisions of the European Funds in the particular context of the Youth Employment Initiative. The exchange of views with Commissioner Vassiliou and the consideration of the draft report on “Tackling Youth Unemployment: Possible Ways Out” and the draft opinion on the Implementation of the EU Youth Strategy 2010-2012 are also linked to this subject.

For the full report, see here. Amendments on the report are due at the beginning of next month.