European leaders decided to deploy eight billion euros (10.4 billion US dollars) to help create jobs for young people, at an EU Summit in Brussels on Thursday.
Yet the fund does not seem enough to tackle the rampant unemployment crisis.
There were many expectations about the Summit and the launch of the EU ‘Youth Unemployment Initiative’, since it depends on a broader deal between the European Commission and the member states on the EU’s multi-year budget.
Despite "full agreement" among leaders on the budget, European Council President Herman van Rompuy conceded that there were still “certain budgetary problems for certain countries.”
EU leaders were expected to set up a plan to stimulate growth and employment resulting in an increase of up to two per cent of the EU GDP. They were also expected to allocate adequate financial resources to support it.
The biggest challenge, however, was to give a concrete answer to the so-called “lost generation” of young Europeans.
There are over 5.6 million young people currently unemployed, with one in four currently out of work. This proportion is far higher in crisis-hit southern eurozone countries such as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
The eight billion euro plan for the Youth Employment Initiative will be deployed from January 2014 and aims to promote work placement programmes across the European Union.
The plan was presented by some leaders as the best possible result, given the budget constraints.
"The main thing here is about improving our competitiveness," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who faces elections in September.
"It’s not about creating more and more pots of money."
Germans are quite keen on keeping budget discipline and weary of funding struggling southern European states.
“We have to give people jobs and we should not make false promises," Merkel added.
Calamity
However, many expressed dissatisfaction that more wasn’t done to tackle youth unemployment.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz defined the measure “a drop in the ocean”.
“To deal with this calamity, resources are needed; only a real recovery plan and a change in economic policies can fundamentally deal with this problem. I doubt that the financing proposed will meet the expectations,” ETUC General Secretary Bernadette Ségol said in her speech to the Council.
The unions invited the European Council to follow up with the ‘social dimension roadmap’ announced last December and which seems to have been postponed indefinitely.
“What do you intend to do – and I mean do, not just talk about – getting our countries and the citizens who elected you out of the hole we are in? Deregulation and austerity have failed. What will you do to put our economies back on track?” asked Ségol.
The economic crisis has nothing but fuelled popular discontent and animosity towards European institutions.
The news agency AFP reports that according to a recent Pew Research survey, favourable opinion of the EU has slumped from 60 per cent last year to just 45 per cent now.
All this takes place while new member states from Eastern Europe and the Balkans prepare to join the Union in the near future.
On 1 July, Croatia will become the 28th member-state of the EU, while Serbia is expected to start membership talks in January 2014 and Albania is hoping to get fresh support for its membership bid, following general elections in June.
