OPEN DAYS 2008-Template for seminars and workshops



OPEN DAYS 2011

Template for reports on seminars

Dear authors,

Please fill in this template by 31 November 2011 and send it to: ConclusionsOD@cor.europa.eu. Concerning the digital photos to be attached, please send in the highest possible resolution and indicate in the file's name the family name of the ones pictured "from left to right", for example "08C21 Maxwell Holstroem Mc Donald Kiss".

Code: 13A56

Workshop: The Jilted Generation?

13 October 2011, 9:00-13:00

Organiser: Consortium “Local Urban Development European Network”

Chair:

Haroon Saad, Director of LUDEN, Brussels, Belgium

Speakers:

Round Table 1

Manoj Budhauliya, Medical Resident 2nd year Gastroenterology

Charalambos Kikidis, communication officer for the Commune of Saint-Josse-Ten-Noode

Other speaker

Jean-François Baillon, Vice-President of General Council of Seine-Saint Denis forin charge of solidarity and social inclusion, social economic, international relationship and European affairs, General Council of Seine-Saint Denis.

Ahmed Medhoune, vice-president in culture, employment and training, public instruction Echevin culture, emploi et formations, instruction publique, commune of Saint-Josse-Ten-Noode

Carla Maria Nunes Tavares, President of the Local Council for Social Action of the Amadora’s Social Network Programme and Education CouncilorCouncillor of the Municipality of Amadora

Round Table 2

Raymond Maes, Head of Unit, European Commission, DG EMPL, Youth Employment Entrepreneurship, Micro-Finances

Luca Scarpiello, Vice-President of European Youth Forum

Romina Matei, President of the Youth Express Network

Flavia Biuarelli, EARALL Business Manager

Philippe Adriaenssens, President of JEF (Jeunes Européens Fédéralistes)

Chiara Mazzone, Journalist at Lo spazio della politica

Outline (not more than 150 words or 1,000 characters)

Round Table 1

The workshop was opened by Mr Saad who set the broader context in which the topic of the jilted generation has to be read. He specified that the issue is not just lack of work, as unemployment entails health, social, financial issues and strains the youth’s capacity to build a life project. He also focused the attention of the audience on the issue of the quality of human capital, by underlying the huge gap between the jobs created in EU, which often require no more than the basic minimum level of secondary education, and the highly skilled youth on the employment market.

After this introduction, Mr Saad started the first roundtable by inviting two young speakers to give concrete example of their situation. Following a bottom up approach, local policy makers responded by presenting a series of measures undertaken at their level in order to tackle youth unemployment.

Debate (not more than 75 words or 600 characters, per presentation/speaker)

Manoj Budhauliya pointed out several interesting points by sharing with the audience his experience as a young doctor migrated from India to Romania. First, the difficulty a family encounters in affording the education of a child. Secondly, the vicious circle that underpins the youth struggle for accessing employment market: “young people can’t get a job without experience but they can’t get experience without a job”. Finally, the unfairness of a system that advantages employers and disadvantages young people, as the latter, just to acquire experience, are eager to work overtime with small or no salary.

Charalambos KIKIDISThe second speaker, equally graduate, has passed through long-term unemployment. After four years of frustration and depression, he decided to review and lower his ambition and finally got a job. He strongly deplored the lack of trust of the employers who demand years of experiences and high professional competences from young people having just entered the employment market.

Having focused on the concrete daily issues faced by the youth to enter the market job, the debate switched to the dedicated actions proposed at the local level by the public authorities. Drawing on the experience of the first speaker, Ahmed Medhoune identified the limits of a system that requires a third country national to leave the European country as soon as he finishes his studies. His proposal to help these talented migrants is to extend their resident permit in order to allow them to complete their educational training with a practical experience through internships or apprenticeships. He also pointed out the need for the young people to develop inter-personal skills and networking which represent key assets for the young unemployed beyond know-how and diploma.

Jean-François Baillon stressed the need to address young people as a whole, in their integrity. Therefore, he called on the European Institutions and National Public Authorities to departmentalize youth unemployment policy. Addressing education and work solely is not sufficient, whereas resorting to a transversal approach integrating health and housing issues (among others) is now of paramount importance. Following Mr Saad’s question on ato what extent his countycity was involving young people in the process of decision making, he exposed a successful example of youth active participation in Seine Saint Denis: the creation of a Youth Council (“le Conseil Local de la Jeunesse”) that enables the young to give voice to their opinion in debating directly with the local politicians.

Amadora is missing

Round Table 2

Outline (not more than 150 words or 1,000 characters)

Outline second round table:

The second round table focused on the EU policies regarding young generations, in particular the "Youth on the Move" initiative. The debate aimed at understanding what has been done up to now, what are the gaps to fill in and, how the existing policiesexisting policies can be improved. To answer these questions there were EU institutions’ representatives and members of young civil society organisations presented diverse opinions. In order to ensure an involvement of as many young people as possible in this dialogue with the institutions, a real time connection via twitter was provided and managed by Chiara Mazzone.

Debate (not more than 75 words or 600 characters, per presentation/speaker)

Raymond Maes, in his position as EC representativeHead of Unit for youth employment, explained the different initiatives undertaken by the EU in order to tackle the issue of young unemployment. He made references to the effort made at the European level to monitor the quality of the traineeships ongoing in member Member States. He also stressed the importance of cooperation between different DGs, as certain measures, such aus the increase of entrepreneurship skills, require a combined effort at an educational, economic and financial level. Finally, he pointed out the importance to increase youth awareness on what are the expectations of labour market.

Luca Scarpiello started his speech by quoting an impressive economic figure: the cost of youth unemployment could be added up to 2 billions eurosEuros per week, whichthat representmeans 104 billions eurosEuros loss per year. This is a huge amount that each Member States will need to adjust in theits debt crisis or to leverage its growth. He also focused on mobility, by saying that it has to be a voluntary choice: young people have to be provided with the chance to move from their country, but they shouldn’t be forced to leave their countries.

Romina Matei expressed her satisfaction towards the European Youth on the Move initiative, as it gives priority to the support to the mobility and flexicurity. In her opinion, what is missing is the implementation of EU initiatives at the local level:; there is athe need to builtlet policies closer to the young people , by involving them in the decisondecision- making process. Ms Matei had every confidence in the ability of young people to identify and promote solutions. Finally, she stressed the importance, once policies are implemented, to monitor and evaluate them. The reason why it is so urgent to sort out the issue of youth unemployment? For her, is that for young people to havinge a job and to be integrated is a human right.

In showing the initiatives undertaken by her organisation in drafting regional indicators on youth policies at the regional level, Flavia Biuarelli focused the attention of the audience to two main points. First of all, the solutions to the problem of youth unemployment depend on the context (the economic, social and demographic situation, regional/national legislation and barriers), therefore different solutions have to be found depending on the region. Secondly, youth policyies should be a transversal element and must not be fall onlylimited on employment issues, they also have to address housing, justice etc.

Philippe Adriaenssens started by saying that too often young people are looked down on as lazy, ‘lost generation’. However, because of the financial crisis, youth will need to work harder and longer than previous generation to sustain pensions and social benefits. Regarding EU policies, as a federalist, he would prefer stronger EU economic governance (community method and not intergovernmental). In his opinion, just exchange of best practices and recommendations to member States is not enough: there is athe need forof more compelling measures to let States guarantee better employment opportunities for young people.

Secondly, he expressed some criticism toward the Youth on the Move strategy, as it is only focused on education and work, whereas it lacks a focus on civil society. He underlinedcomplained that the strategy paysgives no attention to the important relevant skills young people can acquire whether they are involved in civil society, for instance through volunteering; those learning by doing skills, which cannot be taught in schools. Therefore, he called on cooperation between youth NGOs and representatives of local, regional, national and European administrations.

Conclusions (not more than 100 words or 750 characters)

The debate underlined several interesting points. The first part showed how the lack of work affects all the aspects of a young people. In that perspective, , therefore politicians shouldhave to consider the interconnection between employment, well-being, mental health and other policiesso on when they plan youth policies. Secondly, the speeches from the youth civil society organisations told us that young people are not simply recipients of youth policies, they have to be primarily involved in all stages of the decision making process, as they have ideas on what has to be done. Finally, it is important that the European Commission is taking into serious consideration youth. It’s a major (undoubtedly) progress as up to 2010 the EU did not have a strategy for its 60-million-young people aged between 15-24, but a small team working on youth employment policies in the EC will not be enough. Anyhow, the debate showed that there is the need forof more compelling measures from the EU, in order to press the States to respect young people and give them what they deserve. It is a duty for the States to do this, as having a job is a human right.

More information:

LUDEN: video of the workshop under construction – soon available on the website:

Quotes

“The issue is not just the lack of work […] Suicide is the second cause of death of young people in France”  Haroon Saad

“In Europe the quality of human capital is at a no time high and yet we have 50 % of jobs that have been created in 2000-2008 jobs that only require basic minimum level secondary level education.” Haroon Saad

“Young can’t get job without experience but young can’t get experience without a job” Manoj Budhauliya

“Au niveau local c’est important de s’occuper de tout ça, c'est-à-dire il est important d’avoir un psychologue, d’avoir des assistantes sociales, c’est vraiment important de travailler non pas seulementsur pas simplement sur l’emploi et la formation mais égalementtravailler aussi sur les problématiques de santé, les problématiques de logement. , c’est essentiel, u n jeune c’est pas quelqu’un qu’on peut découper en morceaux, quelqu’un qui vit en galère dont on doit occuper tout champ.”  Jean-François Baillon

“Too often young people are looked down on as lazy, ‘lost generation’. However, because of the financial crisis, youth will need to work harder and longer than previous generation to sustain pensions and social benefits.” Philippe Adriaenssens

“For young people is a human right to have a job and to be integrated.” Romina Matei

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