Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2014-07-16-Speech-3-033-000"
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"en.20140716.8.3-033-000"2
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"Madam President, I too would like to welcome my colleague Mrs McGuinness to the chair; I wish you well.
Before the election youth unemployment was the biggest issue for many groups and unfortunately it still is: with 7.5 million young Europeans between the ages of 15 and 24 not in employment, education or training, and 6.8 million in the same situation between the ages of 25 and 30.
At European level we have a number of instruments. We have the Youth Guarantee, we have the Social Fund, we have the Youth Employment Initiative, the Quality Framework for Traineeships, the European Alliance for Apprenticeships and of course the Programme for Employment and Social Innovation.
I suppose in many ways it is too early to really assess the progress made by most of these instruments – for example the Youth Guarantee or the Youth Employment Initiative – but I think it would be fair to say that so far progress is slow and uneven. In this context I think we need a renewed effort from the Commission to encourage Member States to immediately set about the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. I mean, after all, this is supposed to be a flagship project for European Union policy and if we are really serious about its implementation we need to take action.
Obviously I believe youth unemployment needs to be a specific objective within the European Semester and also measures to combat youth unemployment. I am happy that it is included in the country-specific recommendations and the national reform projects and that must remain a priority. I believe too that the Youth Guarantee should be extended to young people under 30.
However we also have to deal with the supply side as well as the demand side and in this context we need to ensure easier access to financing and simpler rules for setting up new businesses. However in many countries, like my own, Ireland, many SMEs are already overburdened with debt. It is not simply a question of easier access to finance – small businesses do not want to take on new borrowings and there is a problem with adequate working capital – so they are caught in a bind. Some mechanisms have to be found to deal with the overhang of debt, otherwise many SMEs will struggle and are doomed to fail."@en1
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