Sergio Cofferati on what Europe should do to boost youth employment and economic growth, Ria Oomen-Ruijten on her proposal for streamlining pension portability.

7 days: Searching for a job, retiring abroad

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/16265863/m004-0072-en.srt

Hello and welcome to today's edition  of 7 Days in Europe.

A few weeks ago we reached 12%  unemployment in the eurozone.

19 million men and women  can't find work.

The most shocking figure is that 25%  of young people are unemployed.

One in four, a shameful figure for the  economic power that the EU claims to be.

But it's a true picture,  the economy is stagnant

and businesses are folding or moving  to areas where labour is cheaper.

Good morning, Sergio Cofferati.  -Good morning.

You're an MEP  in the Socialists and Democrats Group

but you were Secretary-General of Italy's  biggest trade union, the CGIL, for years.

How does it feel to be  always talking about the same things?

Unfortunately this lengthy crisis  we're experiencing throws up issues

of a magnitude that's  not only worrying, it's really shocking.

Europe's weapons  seem to have been blunted.

We'll talk about this later.  -Of course.

First, as for all our guests,  one minute of short questions

Do you have a remedy for unemployment?  -Yes.

Can we stop companies leaving Europe?  -Yes.

Is the young generation lost forever?  -No.

Austerity hurts  and increases unemployment.

Does it cost more to govern without it?  -No.

In Italy we pay 90 billion euros  of interest on our public debt.

With spending controls, we'd have more  money to spend on jobs. Do you agree?

Will there be an Italian election  before summer?

Will Bersani achieve a majority?  -Unfortunately not.

Will Grillo's movement become  the major party in the EU elections?

You're an opera lover. Which opera  best describes the situation in Italy?

We're spoilt for choice because  operas often have dramatic endings.

How do you see the relationship between  austerity and relaunching growth

The problem is  the Council and the Commission

have literally ignored  the things that Parliament...

You asked me  about harsh spending controls.

These are vital,  especially for a country like Italy.

But spending controls alone  don't produce growth and development,

Severity must be accompanied  by policies for growth.

These are  traditional Keynesian policies.

These resources could be found  through eurobonds, on the one hand,

and also the tax  on financial transactions,

which was proposed  but never implemented.

We could have found and could still find  significant resources

I feel we'll need to wait for the German  elections before Germany is convinced...

that I'm counting on the French voters,  the German voters

We're getting there.  -We're getting there.

Let's get back to unemployment.  We've prepared a short report.

We're staying in Belgium, where figures  are less alarming than in Italy

where youth unemployment reaches  50% in parts of the south.

In Brussels the figure is 20%,  but that's not good for the EU capital.

We follow two young people  who are doing training courses.

Hubert Dominique gets bored  in his family home in Brussels.

He's already trained as a mechanic  in technical college.

But without experience he remains  a job seeker with little hope.

I went to register with agencies  to try to find work in this field

I thought I'd try to find work  directly myself, so I went to look.

The problem is that in most garages  they want experience.

He's out of work,  as are 20% of young Belgians.

In spite of his many efforts,  he can't find work.

In order to progress  he's going to change career path.

In a few days, he'll start  a training course in sales.

So there's four months  of intensive lessons

and two to three months  of internship in a company.

He's started 18 months of training as  a heating engineer in the south of Belgium.

Before I came here  I was studying law at university.

And after a while I got fed up,  I wasn't motivated any more,

and I said to myself, 'Why not work  in a trade in the construction industry?'

And I'd already done heating engineering  as a student. So I chose that.

In this training centre run by FOREM,  Wallonia's employment service,

after their training in required trades.  The big advantage is the work experience.

We train job seekers, apprentices,  company bosses, workers,

The EU is planning to increase  the amount of training

for the 5.5 million jobless Europeans  under the age of 25.

But professional training courses  won't solve the problem on their own.

There are things to think about  at European level too.

The states are engaged in battles  with each other.