“This is start of our journey to rebuild the futures of millions of young people left stranded by unemployment”, says PES President
 

Thanks to the efforts of European Socialists and Social Democratic Ministers, the EU Social Ministers Council meeting in Brussels has agreed today to adopt a European-wide Youth Guarantee. The Party of European Socialists (PES) has been at the forefront of the campaign for a European Youth Guarantee over the past year. 

A major step forward that echoes the intense campaigning of the PES family – from activists to Socialist Prime Ministers and Presidents –, the adoption of the Youth Guarantee by the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) will be backed by an initial funding of 6 billion euro from the EU budget. The efforts of EU Commissioner for Social Affairs László Andor and the support of the S&D Group in the European Parliament have been also instrumental in this success.

PES President Sergei Stanishev stated: “This decision should be seen as a great start of our journey to rebuild the futures of millions of young people left stranded by weeks, months, or years of unemployment. One year ago, the European Youth Guarantee was an ambitious idea. 20 days ago, PES Heads of State and Prime Ministers secured a budget line of 6 billion euro dedicated to young unemployment and, today, the EPSCO Council has made the Youth Guarantee official. All these efforts should serve as a trigger effect across the European Union to finally tackle the youth unemployment crisis”.

PES Women President Zita Gurmai added: ”This is a huge success but not the end of the road. Now, we need to increase funding to 10 billion euros so that we can bring the Youth Guarantee to all corners of the EU – and we need to ensure that we implement a Guarantee of quality. The Gender Dimension of the European Youth Guarantee must be integral to its success. The PES family will keep the pressure on to ensure that the Youth Guarantee reaches as many as possible of the 5.8 million futures blighted by this crisis. The efforts of László Andor as EU Social Affairs Commissioner have been instrumental in getting us to this point”.

Thanks to the Irish Labour Party, tackling the issue of youth unemployment has been one of the top priorities of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The scheme, inspired by the successful experiences in Austria and Finland, has been recently implemented in Luxembourg and it is at the centre of the political debate in France.

Please see photos of PES Social Affairs and Employment Ministers supporting our campaign here.

The PES will continue fighting for the swift and full implementation of the European Youth Guarantee.