Investing in youth employment high on Parliament's agenda

Yesterday, in a high level debate in the European Parliament, the co-chairs of the Youth Intergroup reinforced their commitment to investing in tackling youth unemployment.

The event "Invest in Youth Employment", co-hosted by the European Youth Forum and the Parliament's Youth Intergroup, brought together MEPs, policy makers, experts and youth organisation representatives to bring the youth voice to the debate around the implementation and future funding of the Youth Guarantee and the Youth Employment Initiative, with a long term aim of pushing for the prioritisation of youth issues in the EU budget.

In an earlier session, the experts, policy makers and young people held interactive discussions around three key topics to do with the Youth Guarantee: accessibility, quality of offers and funding. The conclusions from these workshops were then presented to MEPs in the European Parliament as part of the public panel debate "Looking ahead. Future funding and implementation of the Youth Guarantee."

The MEPs present, Co Chairs of the Youth Intergroup: Eider Gardiazabal Rubial, Terry Reintke and Brando Benifei, and Vice President of the Committee of Budgetary Control Martina Dlabajova, all gave their commitment for pushing for investment in youth employment.

Meanwhile, experts and policy makers, including Max Uebe, Head of Unit Employment Strategy, European Commission, Thiébaut Weber, ETUC and Giorgio Zecca, Eurocities emphasised the need to focus on the quality of job/training offers, on the outcomes of such offers for young people, as well as on the accessibility and outreach of the Youth Guarantee to all young people, especially the most vulnerable groups.