The Party of European Socialists (PES) welcomes the Preparatory action “Youth Guarantee” recently announced by Laszlo Andor, EU Commissioner for social affairs, and PES member. The initiative, launched by the European Commission is a first step in answering the alarming situation of youth unemployment in Europe (it is over 30% in eight Member States – in Spain and Greece the rate exceeds 50%),
A boost in tackling youth employment, the EC initiative is a response to the PES main campaign of the year, 'Your future is my future – a European Youth Guarantee now', which has received strong support all over Europe.
The Commission initiative aims to support projects “in the context of Youth Guarantee schemes at national, regional or local level”. The preparatory action will have a budget of 4 million euro.
This step is a promising glimpse of the challenges to follow: the importance of working with governments, institutions and political parties in order to turn these projects into long-term national schemes.
Alejandro Cercas MEP (Spain) and S&D Spokesperson for Social Affairs, underlined that; “we suggested this Preparatory action not only because it was the best for young European, but also because we owed it to them. They have been hit hardest by the crisis and their voices have been rarely heard. The reality is that conservative politicians across the EU have systematically ignored the problem. Now, thanks to the contribution and hard work of the PES campaign and our member parties, we can change direction and provide solutions to 5.5 million unemployed Europeans. We have been saying it all along: if we want to find a way out of the crisis, people must be put first”.
Mr. Cercas added: “This action symbolizes the strong efforts and results achieved by our progressive family, from the PES campaign to the successful schemes being implemented in Luxembourg, Finland and Malta. As the PES slogan says, your future is my future”.