News

Six European trade union federations (ETUFs) and their combined membership of 30 million workers, powering the campaign “Enough of their crisis – back to our future”, are deeply concerned by the Italian EU Presidency’s cancelling of the Inter-Ministerial Summit on Youth Employment, initially planned for 11 July in Turin.

ETUFs argue that the postponement of the Youth Summit is proof that EU leaders are simply ashamed of the dismal results in implementing the Youth Guarantee agreed by the Council in April 2013.

ETUFs are responding with a twitter storm to make heads of state, Members of the European Parliament and the Commission accountable for their inactivity.

The cancellation of this meeting is alarming. Europe is still in recession and persistent mass-scale youth unemployment remains in spite of modest recovery in some areas.

The modest 6 billion euros set aside over a seven-year period to implement the Youth Guarantee was always seen by the ETUFs as too little, too late. In a joint declaration in February 2014, the ETUFs stated that with an estimated cost of 21 billion euros per year to set up an effective tool, and without any enforcement measures for implementation on national level, the EU’s promise remains far from adequate to tackle the youth unemployment crisis.

EU leaders have called for more time, with the Summit postponed to the end of the year – a clear indication of the lack of political will to prevent a jobless generation. Member States, together with the European Commission, must think harder about the design of the Youth Guarantee and prioritise direct and transparent measures to reduce youth unemployment, such as investing in new quality jobs.

Together with their respective youth organisations, the ETUFs will meet with the newly formed European Parliament groups later in the year to lay out their key demands to reclaim the rights of Europe’s youth.

Since their campaign launch in March 2014, the ETUFs have undertaken flash mobs in different European capitals to draw public attention to the critical situation for young workers in Europe, led a 50,000-strong European trade union demonstration and undertaken other isolated actions around Europe, spoken in the European Parliament, convened a press conference and penned a series of articles.

The ETUFs Joint Press Release is annexed.