Commissioner Andor's statement on roll-out of Youth Employment Initiative

Speaking at the European Parliament plenary session, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, László Andor said: "I would like to thank the European Parliament for its support to the Commission's efforts in developing and implementing the Youth Guarantee. The Youth Guarantee is one of the most important and ambitious reforms proposed by this Commission. As you know very well in this House, the Youth Guarantee is a fundamentally new approach based on the best existing models within the EU, namely in Austria and Finland. It is a key structural reform that requires in-depth changes to education, training and job-search systems in order to facilitate and accelerate the transition from education to employment.

"The concept of the Youth Guarantee has been endorsed by the G20 employment ministers meeting last week in Melbourne. We are working hard with member states to implement the Youth Guarantee. A few months ago, all member states submitted comprehensive Implementation Plans to the Commission. Since then, they have passed new laws; established innovative working methods; and upgraded the support provided by their public employment services. Pilot projects are also running in a number of member states. So implementation of the Youth Guarantee is well on track and is already bringing results. Compared to other structural reforms in Europe, the Youth Guarantee is probably the most rapidly implemented.

"As President Schulz highlighted a few days ago at the Cohesion Forum, significant EU funding dedicated to implement the Youth Guarantee has been made available to the member states, including through front-loading of the EU budget. Let me inform you of the state of play of the dedicated Youth Employment Initiative resources with the latest data. The Commission has received all 34 Operational Programmes which include resources from the Initiative. 26 out of 34 will be adopted in 2014, covering about 85% of the total amount of the Youth Employment Initiative.

"As regards financial allocations, we can therefore ensure - on the basis of the submitted Operational Programmes - that all the € 6.4 billion of the Youth Employment Initiative will be committed in 2014-2015. In addition, on the basis of the draft operational programmes submitted by the member states, we can foresee that over €4 billion euros of additional European Social Fund resources will be committed to support youth employment. In other words, the member states have, at this stage, approximately €10 billion to support young people.

"What about the actual action on the ground? Some member states have already stated that they are making use of the early eligibility date - i.e. 1 September 2013 - and they are funding measures on the ground that can be reimbursed from the Initiative and ESF resources. I have asked national authorities to provide us with concrete information on the estimated number of young people to benefit from these measures, and on the types of measures financed by the member states in 2014. I expect to receive this information from the member states by the end of this month."

The level of unemployment has been decreasing in Europe in the last one year but is still very high. There are still more than 5 million young people among the unemployed. I believe the Youth Guarantee will help to make an economic recovery job-rich and it will make a systemic and decisive improvement to school-to-work transitions. However, we should not forget that, in the absence of overall economic growth, it would be impossible for any labour market reform to solve an economic crisis of such a magnitude as we have experienced in Europe. In other words, the Youth Guarantee will deliver much more when it will be accompanied by adequate more supportive macroeconomic instruments. I count on the Italian Presidency to keep all this high on the political agenda.

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