Eurodiaconia recently took part in the European Commission’s strategic dialogue meeting on reinforcing the Youth Guarantee, a commitment made by all EU Member States to ensure that all young people under the age of 25 years receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, apprenticeship or traineeship within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education.

The meeting aimed at collecting views from different stakeholders on how the current Youth Guarantee policy framework could be best improved as the Commission plans to put forward a proposal for a Council Recommendation on a reinforced Youth Guarantee in Q2 2020.

Eurodiaconia stressed the role of Christian-based organisations and the importance of the intercultural approach in addressing youth unemployment and inactivity. Our Policy Officer Stefan Kitzmann also cautioned that reduced funding for social issues would make it more challenging to implement the Youth Guarantee further.

Eurodiaconia continuously works to examine and asses the the current EU policies and state of play in the field of youth and employment. Our recently published research paper on the subject, titled “Fighting youth unemployment, marginalisation and radicalisation prevention through social inclusion in Europe”, presents a set of policy recommendations based on the opinions and good practices of the Eurodiaconia membership.

 

You can find the meeting report of the strategic dialogue meeting and our research paper on our website.