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Austrian Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Evelyn Regner has expressed her support for the Back2OurFuture campaign that aims to tackle youth unemployment.

Referring to the campaign, she said that “this clearly shows the kind of vision of European policy that young people have”. “Huge amounts are being spent to save the banks but when it’s about young people the money simply doesn’t arrive and if it does it’s arriving much too late,” she said.

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During the plenary session of the European Parliament, elected officials and the Latvian Presidency debated the state and lack of progress in the implementation of the European Youth Guarantee. In Europe, the risk for young people under 25 to be unemployed is still twice as high compared to any other group. In countries like Spain or Greece almost 50% of all young people are without a job.

Evelyn Regner, Member of the European Parliament and the S&D group pointed out once again, that the youth unemployment crisis throughout Europe causes yearly costs of €153 billion Euro. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has estimated that an efficient Youth Guarantee scheme could be set up in Europe with €21 billion per year, the €6 billion made available under the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) during a 7 year period are insufficient to tackle this most urgent problem.

Mrs. Regner conveyed the message to Parliament, the Council and its Presidency, that we, the young European trade unionists are concerned that Youth Guarantee (YG) will fail to fulfill its promises! This analysis is shared within the ETUC’s “The Youth Guarantee in Europe” report, which identifies following shortcomings that endanger the future of a whole generation: increasing precariousness, sluggish investment, insufficient cooperation with unions and overburdened administrations.

Last week over 150 young unionist from all over Europe met in Croatia and discussed these issues and sent a letter to Commission President Juncker demanding more involvement. Stop talking about us, talk with us. Our future is at stake! We want real perspectives. Enough of their crisis, back to our future!