On Saturday 29th of October, the Party of European Socialists held the Youth Unemployment Public Campaign Meeting, where activists and high-profile leaders shared their opinions and plans for action on the European Youth Guarantee. Participants confirmed their commitment to campaign for the introduction of strong youth guarantees on the European and national level.
The event took place in the framework of the 9th PES Congress in Brussels.
Nicolas Schmit, Minister for Employment (Luxembourg), reiterated his pledge to introduce a European Youth Guarantee by establishing a strong European framework to support and monitor the introduction of youth guarantees. He emphasized: “We need safeguards on the European level that every Member State does guarantee the right to every young woman and man to a new job, training or further education after four months. Any form of abuse, for example using this tool to force young people in unpaid jobs, must be avoided from the beginning. However, such a European Youth Guarantee will only work, if we provide the necessary funds. We therefore ask for a 10 billion € European Youth Employment Programme.”
S&D Employment coordinator, Alejandro Cercas MEP (Spain) also attended the event. He underlined that; “implementing such a youth guarantee in Spain is extremely important to give young people hope, but without European funds, the Spanish state, and other Member States will not be able to finance it.”
In the meeting, Kaisa Penny, President of ECOSY – Young European Socialists, underlined that the youth guarantee have been implemented successfully in Austria and Finland, despite large differences in their social security systems. She underlined: “To make a youth guarantee reality, you have to do three things: create more decent jobs for young people, improve the training and education system and strengthen active labour market policies.”
The meeting also resulted in commitments and further pledges building upon the recent successes in Ireland, where the Labour Minister Joan Burton decided to make the youth guarantee a priority for the Irish Presidency of the EU.
One of the side events of the Congress was a photo exhibition featuring some of this year’s main pictures with the frame “Your future is your future”.
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