EU leaders meet in Paris to tackle youth employment
Youth joblessness, which stands at 23.5 per cent with rates much higher in areas hit heavily by the economic downturn, top of the agenda at Paris meeting
Europe’s leaders gather in Paris on Tuesday to discuss ways of tackling youth unemployment, in the latest of a flurry of meetings and measures since German leader Angela Merkel said it was the most pressing issue facing the continent.
The conference hosted by French President Francois Hollande follows a July summit initiated by the German chancellor in Berlin and is to be attended by heads of state or government from 24 of the EU’s 28 member states.
Hollande advisers described the bloc’s commitment as “very strong” ahead of the conference, which will also be attended by the heads of the European council, commission, parliament and investment bank.
According to the European Commission’s latest statistics, the EU-wide youth joblessness rate stands at 23.5 per cent. A total of 7.5 million aged 15-24 are neither in work, education or training.
The sting of the crisis is felt differently across the bloc. The youth unemployment rate is pinned down at 7.7 per cent in Europe’s healthiest economy Germany, but soaring past 50 per cent in debt-crippled southern countries such as Greece or Spain.
Ahead of the July summit, Merkel pushed the issue to the top of the bloc’s agenda by calling youth unemployment “perhaps the most pressing problem facing Europe”.
