European Youth Forum statement on Jobs and Growth Summit

The European Youth Forum regrets the lack of clarity and confusion regarding the heads of states Summit on Jobs and Growth taking place today in Milan. We are deeply disappointed not to see youth employment as the main focus of this summit, as was originally planned.

We do welcome the attention on investment and job creation as employment policies and targeted measures such as the Youth Guarantee will not solve the unemployment crisis alone. Targeted measures need to be complemented by new quality jobs created through growth.

However, this on and off summit illustrates the difficulty for Member States to agree on a coherent and ambitious solution to invest in the creation of quality jobs where young people should be key constituency to benefit.

The challenges around the organisation of this summit should not shift our attention from the fact that a proper follow-up of last year’s Summit on Youth Employment, held in Paris, is still needed and that youth employment – which in some European countries stands at over 50% – deserves the highest political attention.