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Т. Дибоу ПОЛИТИКА
ЕВРОПЕЙСКОГО СОЮЗА В РЕШЕНИИ БЕЗРАБОТИЦЫ СРЕДИ МОЛОДЕЖИ
Аннотация
В статье раскрывается, что безработица среди молодежи является сквозным вопросом в политике Европейского Союза и нуждается в специальном комплексного подходе решения этой проблемы. Разнообразие мероприятий по борьбе с безработицей среди молодежи связано с желанием обеспечить горизонтальное сотрудничество на Европейском уровне в сфере молодежи. Таким образом, основная идея работы состоит в анализе горизонтального сотрудничества на уровне ЕС с рассмотрением основных инструментов и мер, которые возникли и развивались для удоволетворения молодежных потребностей на европейском уровне. В основу анализа легли документы ЕС, касающихся темы безработицы среди молодежи в ЕС. Изучение общих действий ЕС в отношении поддержки занятости молодежи помогает лучше понять как на самом деле сотрудничество между различными заинтересованными сторонами осуществляется в молодежной сфере на европейском уровне.
Ключевые слова:
сотрудничество ЕС в сфере молодежи, молодежная политика ЕС, занятость молодежи, безработица среди молодежи.
T. Dibou
THE EU RESPONSES FOR TACKLING YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
Abstract
The article reveals that youth unemployment is cross-cutting issue in the European Union (EU), that determine from the EU special complex response to tackle it. Multiplicity of actions for tackling youth unemployment is associated with desire to ensure the horizontal cooperation at the European level in the youth field. Thus, the main idea of the paper is to analyze horizontal cooperation, with mapping main measures that were emerged and developed for youth needs at the European level. The analysis is based mainly on the EU policy documents concerning the theme youth unemployment in the EU. Studying the EU actions toward youth employment support better understanding how actually co-operation between various stakeholders exists in the youth field at the European level.
Key words:
EU co-operation youth field, the EU youth policy, youth employment, youth unemployment.
The European Union (EU) has been made a significant impact to support the EU Members for undertaking policy reforms that invest in young people. The trend to include „youth dimension" in many policy areas is a relatively recent phenomenon and mainly occured due to economical reason as high youth vulnarability on labour market.
According Eurostat statistics in the EU the youth unemployment rate was 23.2% in the beginning of year 2013 [13]. In the several EU Members as Spain and Greece it was even above 50%, that is almost three times higher than the corresponding figure for prime-age workers. Unemployment is powerful threat to the well-being of the youth itself and the EU general future suistainability. For instance, one the general EU ojectives says: „The Union shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress... „ [2].
Many youth researchers concentrate on the theme of youth transition from childhood to adulthood, where youth employment is overwhelmingly identified as the major challenge confronting young people. In the academic literature also youth unemployment is generally defined as „difficul-ties in the transition from education to the labour market" among people aged between 15 and 24 years of age.
The EU actions against youth unemployment is taken in the article by purpose for analyzing the horizontal co-operation at the European level, with mapping main measures that were emerged and developed for youth needs. The article explore how youth dimension became more visible within the EU documents, various policy fields and funds in order to find appropriate solutions for tackling high rate of youth unemployment.
The EU level have been taken here for analysis horizontal cooperation in the youth field due to following circumstance: the EU level is a level of general recommendations for the EU Members, therefore the best practises implemented at the EU level can be a good example for the national states to integrate them at the regional, national and local levels. The EU efforts for overcoming youth issues and supporting the young generation can not be diminished as the EU creates opportunities to share good practices and fostering of co-operation among all policy actors. Moreover the co-operation between ministries and various sectors at the national level of the EU Member States is still at the modest level.
This paper is based on analysis of EU policy documents and systematizing of academic literature and previous surveys on the theme of youth unemployment in the EU. The paper enables to understand horizontal dimension in the governance of the EU policies, introducing the example of cooperation for solving youth issues at the European level. The paper consits of
two sections. The first section of the paper explains why youth unemployment is cross-cutting issue. The second section section explores the EU horizontal co-operation in the youth field in solving the youth uneployment issue.
This article is written as part of the PhD research "The EU and the EU members youth policy in the context of multi-level governance", that examining model of the EU youth policy, by giving an integrated and updated analysis of EU youth policy governance and its content placing it to multilevel governance framework. As the article explores actions in various fields at the European level toward youth, it supports better understanding of horizontal dimension of multi-level governance of the EU youth policy.
Why youth unemployment is cross cutting issue?
Youth unemployment is cross-cutting issue from the different sides.
Firstly, youth itself is not a homogeneous group. Among youngsters there are various marginalised groups that have different barriers to enter the labour market. Groups that face strong challenges are usually immigrants, youth from low income families, youth with few opportunities and others groups with a reduced ability to work. This means that measures should be highly diversified according to the various needs of youngsters.
Secondly, measures against youth employment commonly are directed to specific group at the age of 15-30 years that actually from other point of view is taken into account in overall EU strategies and programs also as grown-ups. But it is still essential to mention that young people need special approaches, due to the lack of working experience and education they encounter more difficulties to enter the labor market than adults. The measures that may be work well for adults, not neccessarily will be suitable for young people. That means that the right measures should be more youth centered, there in particular the central part is to take into account young people's own needs and desires. The appropriate measures for youngsters are not provider focused [17, p. 66], where providers (institutions, organizations, programs ets) offer general solutions and then trying to match them for youngsters, but in contrast customizing an existing system to the needs of young people.
Thirdly, as the needs and sitution of young people are costantly changing, no doubt that the measures for youth employment should be dynamic and evidence based. The current situation of youth employment, the
factors affecting the youth employment should be estimated and possible solutions can be prepared according to analysis of such dynamics. Strategies for combating youth unemployment have to take as a starting point an analysis of the national, regional and local specificities of the phenomenon.
Finally, there no one suitable solution, that works at once for all youngsters. We have to take into consideration that actually we are talking not only about measures that solve the current unemployment issues as itself, but the more attention is directed for finding suitable solutions on the ground of the problem, where preventive and proactive actions are highly valued.
Youth unemployment can be affected by a series of factors more than from one field. Therefore, the EU argues that the stimulation of youth employment requires co-operation between various stakeholders and fields at the EU level and integration of the proposed solutions in the EU Members.
There are many reasons to place combating youth unemployment as highest priority in European politics. Taking into consideration this aspect and the fact that nowadays youth is more vulnarable group in society, it raises more recognition and special attention from wide spectrum of stakeholders in various policy areas. Youth unemployment issue can not be solved only by labour or youth policy programms, it needs more complex approach. For instance, the EU proclaims that youth dimension should be included in overall EU strategies, programms, actions toward better supporting youth development. The EU suggests that a comprehensive horizontally cross-cutting co-ordinated approach to youth employment - would work best.
Explaining the EU horizontal co-operation on tackling youth
unemployment
Multiplicity of actions for tackling youth unemployment is associated with desire to ensure the horizontal co-operation at the European level in the youth field. The horizontal co-operation aquires to work actors across one field boundaries in order to archive shared goals and to influence outcomes. The horizontal co-operation implies better use of resourses, solutions and synergies.
The European Union policies are interacted horizontally by a wider range of measures. In this part of the paper by screening the EU intru-
ments in field of youth employment, we will firstly try to analyse the existence of horizontal co-operation. Analysing actions for solving youth unemployment issue at the European level will be done through categorizing various EU measures tackling youth unemployment on the ground according to their main objectives and through providing short overview of the EU documents, programmes, funds and etc, where youth employment was mentioned as key element. These two approaches help to explore where youth dimension was included in various EU policy fields and agendas. Additionally, it gives opportunity to check whether horizontal co-operation exists in the youth field at the European level.
The EU measures tackling with youth unemployment represent a broad range of solutions, that is possible to distribute in folllowing broad categories (see Figure 1.):
Figure 1. The wheel of EU actions for tackling with youth unemployment.
Measures, that are directed to prevent early school leaving. Early school leaving is serious problem, the lack of education excludes youngsters to enter the labour market. The EU measures for tackling early school drop-outs are provided within EU education and training policy. Additionally
to formal education, the EU proclaims non- formal education value within the EU youth policy.
One objectives of Europe 2020 strategy is to reduce the share of early school leavers to less than 10% and to ensure that at least 40% of the younger generation have a tertiary qualification or equivalent education. The existing strategic framework for co-operation in education and training, Education and Training 2020, its tools and reporting mechanisms eager to support the implementation of effective and efficient policies against early school leaving [12]. The EU provides a platform for highlighting Member States' progress, supporting the availability of solid and comparable statistics via Eurostat. Additionally, the EU allocates financing sources for the EU Members States to reduce early school leaving in the EU Member States through the European Structural Funds, especially the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund.
Meausures, that are directed to facilitate the transition from school to work. The facilitating transition from school to work is associated with investment in measures such as job-specific or broader vocational competences trainings to help youngsters more quickly to enter the labour market, also actions, that provide information, for instance, career guidance.
The EU to ensure the smooth transition from school has proposed package for youth as'youth guarantee' which sets out the rights of all young people up to age 25 receive a quality offer of a job, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed. The proposed recommendation urges the EU Member States to ensure early intervention by employment services and other partners supporting young people with full use of the European Social Fund and other EU structural funds. The EU career guidance and councelling servises are subsidized by European Social Fund.
Measures to develop employability. Improving young people's em-ployability is a key aspect of their successful integration into the labour market. The EU is the main facilitator of the promotion of employability idea. The main EU programmes such as Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus, volunteer programmes within the framework of the Youth in Action programme, Leonardo Da Vinci, Comenius and Marie Curie programmes, a job mobility scheme „Your first EURES job" have given fresh impetus to youth
employability area. All these programs are spread mainly within three the EU policy fields: education, culture and youth.
The most known programme Youth in Action for young people aged 13-30 had a range of measures that prevent youth unemployment such as nonformal learning, socialization of youth, mobility, first working experience through volunteering.
Measures, that help to remove barriers to employment. It involves the provision of incentives or other support either for the young people themselves, or for employers. International job fairs, workshops, web portals as Eurodesk and EURES are the EU ways for spreading information about job opportunities abroad or other transnational mobility schemes. To enhance transparency, the EURES European Job Mobility Portal gives access to over 1.3million vacancies and 850 000 CVs, and the European Vacancy Monitor provides quarterly labour-market updates on the job opportunities available in different sectors and countries across the EU [25,p. 22]. In terms of awareness raising for volunteering, many Member States referred to the value of the European Year of Volunteering 2011. Some refer to Eurodesk and its network as animportant provider of information about volunteering [25, p. 70].
Measures that support creation of the jobs. Creating the jobs is the main challenge for the EU and its Member States. Traditional instruments include the provision of temporary employment subsidies and the financial or technical support of unemployed persons moving into self-employment. One of the succesful examples of the measures that support youth entre-preneurship is „Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs" a cross-border exchange programme, which gives new or aspiring entrepreneurs the chance to learn from experienced entrepreneurs running small businesses in other participating countries.
In general the EU have undertaken ad-hoc initiatives to combat youth unemployment, but only indirectly through better regulation. It have not have any specific direct fiscal stimulus programme to decrease the rate of youth unemployment. It included, however, youth dimension linked to youth unemployment issues in the main EU documents, programs, actions.
The first official references to youth dimension can be found in the 1957 European Economic Community Treaty, where article 50 provides that: the EU Member States shall encourage the exchange of young work-
ers. During 1990s youth dimension was included in the Commission's White Paper Growth, Competitiveness and Employment (1993) by drawing attention to the issue of youth unemployment. In the Commission's White Paper „European Social Policy"(1994) the EU proposed a number of initiatives relating to youth employment, training and education such as a Union wide guarantee that no one under the age of 18 can be unemployed, the elimination of basic illiteracy for school leavers, and improvement of education, training and vocational training. Alongside employment protection, active labour market policy is a second and highly valued instrument to address youth unemployment. In response to rising youth unemployment figures in the mid-1990s, the European Active Labour Market Policy was introduced, based on and coordinated in terms of the European Employment Guidelines (first issued in 1997). These Guidelines include youth-specific goals to prevent or reduce youth unemployment and raise educational attainment. EU Member States agreed in 1997 to implement training and employment schemes for young people in accordance with the Guidelines' goals, and in subsequent years youth schemes became an important policy instrument.
One of main significant document of 1990s in the field of employment known as the European Employment Strategy (1997) encouraged EU member states to introduce measures to enhance 'employability'. The European Employment Strategy's guidelines calle upon EU member states to review the incentives and disincentives associated with tax and benefit systems and the management and conditionality of benefits [18]. The formation of the European Employment Strategy signifies the beginning of significant policy activism within the field of youth policy and its mainstreaming into other existing policies i.e. the integration of a youth perspective into every stage of the policy process - design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation - with a view to promote the inclusion of youth. For instance, on 8 February 1999 the Council and the Ministers responsible for Youth adopted a resolution of youth participation which emphasised the importance of young people taking an active part in social, political, cultural and economic life . Whilst the Youth Council on 23 November 1999 established guidelines including a cross sectoral approach to youth questions and a policy based on involving young people which are to underpin the policy cooperation regarding youth [15, p. 7].
A futher step in inclusion youth dimension in various policy areas was made after the EU Commission published its White Paper "A New Impetus for European Youth" (2001), where the EU Commission proclaimed to take the youth dimension more into account when developing other relevant policies, such as education and training, employment and social inclusion, health and anti-discrimination. Another significant document that promoted cross-sectoral policy co-operation for youth is the EU Commission strat-egy„Youth - Investing and Empowering' (2009). The Strategy encourages a more research and evidence-based youth policy. In response, the Council adopted the 2009 resolution on a renewed framework for European cooperation in the youth field 2010-2018 (2009), that defined two overall objectives: more and equal opportunities for young people in education and in the labour market; active citizenship, social inclusion and solidarity of young people. The objectives are underpinned by eight fields of action in which initiatives should be undertaken: education and training; employment and entrepreneurship; health and well-being; participation; voluntary activities; social inclusion; youth and the world; and creativity and culture.
The youth employment was the priority of the first cycle under the EU Youth Strategy. The strategy proposed following objectives in the field of youth employability, indicating such actions fields as:
- Education: develop out of school learning to help early school leavers; make available good quality guidance and counselling services; use Europass and provide certificates such as Youthpass [25].
- Employment: lower barriers to the free movement of labour across the EU; develop youth employability through youth work; promote quality internships and employment schemes [25].
- Volunteering: enhance skills recognition through Europass and Youthpass; reflect on ways to better protect rights of volunteers and assure quality in volunteering; develop national approaches on mobility of young volunteers [25].
- Creativity and entrepreunership: develop 'start up' funds; encourage recognition of junior enterprises; widen access to creative tools, particularly those involving new technologies [25].
The EU Youth Strategy envisaged that the Member States and the Commission within their respective spheres of competence will come up with initiatives that will ensure a specific youth perspective when devising
flexicurity strategies; widen cross-border training opportunities for young people that will improve their professional and vocation skills and stimulate the free movement of workers across the EU; develop career guidance and counselling services; promote quality internships and apprenticeships to facilitate the labour market entry and career progress of young people; expand childcare provision and advance the sharing of responsibilities between partners; and support the development of European networks and structures promoting youth self-employment and encourage entrepreneur-ship particularly in the field of sustainable development [20, p. 4].
However in 2000s the EU responses to youth issues were more indicated within the EU youth policy documents, it is worthy to mention that youth dimension was introduced also in general EU documents.
In 2008, the Commission initiated an European Economic Recovery Plan, which included a number of measures and recommendations relating to young people, workers on non-standard contracts and the retraining of unemployed workers. In the document the Commission also introduced the principles of 'flexicurity', a concept, which comprise: 1) Flexible and reliable contractual arrangements from the perspective of the employer and the employee, of 'insiders' and 'outsiders'; 2) Comprehensive lifelong learning strategies to ensure the continual adaptability and employability of workers; 3) Effective active labour market policies that help people cope with rapid change, reduce unemployment spells and ease transitions to new jobs; 4) Modern social security systems that provide adequate income support, encourage employment and facilitate labour market mobility [7]. The four pillars of flexicurity are ambiguously worded, enabling European policy makers to present flexicurity as a policy approach through which everyone - workers (both labour market 'insiders' and 'outsiders'), employers and governments - gains and nobody loses [6, p.12] Within an European Economic Recovery Plan governments of the EU member states were advised to ensure that their policies for tackling joblessness were focused on 'training-first' rather than 'work-first' measures [19], where education and training ('lifelong learning') are key components of flexicurity. Various education and training initiatives have been launched in an effort to boost education and training, for example the 'Education and Training 2010' agenda, directed at making the European approach to education and training a 'world reference'[17].
The most recent EU strategy „Europe 2020" (2010) also makes special reference to youth needs concerning employment, education, training and skills and social inclusion within flagship initiative called 'Youth on the Move', which has four lines of actions tacling youth unemployment issues.
First, the lifelong learning initiatives aim at reducing early school leaving to 10 percent acknowledging non-formal learning, and promoting apprenticeship-type vocational training and high quality traineeships as workplace learning experiences. The second line of action aims to increase participation in higher education with the ultimate aim of 40 percent of 3034 year olds completing higher education. This includes reforming and modernizing higher education, benchmarking university performance, promoting the attractiveness of European higher education and fostering academic cooperation and exchanges. The third line of action includes support for studying and working abroad, while the fourth one addresses the improvement of the employment situation of young people.
This short overview gives opportunity to find inclusion of youth dimension in general the EU documents as the EU Commission's White Paper Growth, Competitiveness and Employment (1993), the European Strategy 2020 and separately in documents of the EU various policies as social policy, educational policy, youth policy. To conclude three types of horizontal co-operation exists at the EU level for tackling youth unemployment.
First of all, the allocation of the EU funds and programs (e.g. the EU Social Fund, European Regional Development Fund, the programs "Erasmus mobility", "Youth in Action", "Youth Opportunities Initiative" and new programm „Erasmus plus" etc). The financial resources are necessary for operative management and implementation of the programmes and measures. From the EU Structural Funds, mostly act for youth interest the European Social Fund (ESF) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The ESF was established in 1960 and actually is the main instrument of EU social policy. It provides financial assistance for vocational training, retraining and job-creation schemes. The ERDF was set up in 1975, and it is intended to help reduce imbalances between regions of the EU. The ERDF is the main financial instrument of EU Regional policy.
Secondly, the cross-sectoral policies co-operation (e.g. education policy, youth policy, social policy, employment policy, gender policy and etc) The cross-sectoral cooperation was proclaimed in the main EU youth policy
documents as the White Paper on Youth (2001), the European Youth Pact (2005), Youth Strategy 2010-2018 (2009). Education and youth policies are main policies areas, where the main measures against youth unemployment is proclaimed. Appropriate education and youth work are preventive measures against youth unemployment.
Thirdly, the organisational (institutional) co-operation (e.g. Council of the EU, European Commission, European Parliament, Committee of Regions, Economic and Social Committee and etc)
To conclude, such kind of the EU experience of horisontal cooperation is reccommended to be transfered to regional, national and local levels. Mostly recommendations in the field of youth employment are proclaimed in "soft policy areas", therefore not all proposals are implemented at national level. But these recommendations provide strong promotion of the problem and disseminations of specific ways how we problems can be solved. However, each the EU member has own measures to tackle with youth issues, the role of the European Union should not be diminished in the formation of new approaches for better development national youth policies. Thus, it is still big challenge for effective co-operational woking -where all stakeholders are included, the EU recommendations facilitate possible reform efforts for policy makers and policy practioners to use co-operational approach at regional, national and local levels.
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