Debate during the plenary session of January in Strasbourg on European Youth Initiative. Statement by&nbsp;Marianne THYSSEN, Member of the EC in charge of Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility,&nbsp;Lara COMI (EPP, IT),&nbsp;Jutta STEINRUCK (S&amp;D, DE),&nbsp;Martina DLABAJOV&Aacute; (ALDE, CZ),&nbsp;Terry REINTKE (Greens/EFA, DE) and&nbsp;Elisabeth MORIN-CHARTIER (EPP, FR).

youth guarantee schemes (T)

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

REINTKE, Terry (Greens/EFA, DE)

STEINRUCK, Jutta (S&D, DE)

THYSSEN, Marianne (EPP, BE, EC)

DLABAJOVÁ, Martina (Renew, CZ)

COMI, Lara (EPP, IT)

European Youth Initiative: extracts from the debate

SOUNDBITE (English), Marianne THYSSEN, Member of the EC in charge of Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, "Progress has not yet lift up to expectations. The initial pre-financing amount of 1 percent and of 1,5 percent of the Member States programme, the initial pre-financing amount proofed to be too low to roll out the initiative, particularly to those Member States that have significant budgetary constraints."

SOUNDBITE (English), Marianne THYSSEN, Member of the EC in charge of Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, "The increased pre-financing proposal will amount to around 1 Billion Euros, 30 percent of the specific allocation, instead of current 39 Million Euros."

SOUNDBITE (English), Marianne THYSSEN, Member of the EC in charge of Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, "We expect that with this additional pre-financing up to 650.000 young people will be able to rapidly receive support."

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Lara COMI (EPP, IT), "The problem that we see particularly when it comes to Member States is how to use this money, how the money is used, how all this very positive initiatives being undertaken by Europe, can be then transferred to Member States. The Youth guarantee Fund for example, I think is excellent, but not all Member States have adopted or use it in the best possible way."

SOUNDBITE (German), Jutta STEINRUCK (S&amp;D, DE), "We also must welcome the political decision to bring to a close this failed policy of austerity. We don't need to cut money for those people who need help, we need to invest. In Finland we can see a very good example, 38% of young unemployed have been put in work as a result of this, that should be a model for other countries."

SOUNDBITE (Czech), Martina DLABAJOV&#193; (ALDE, CZ), "We must start motivating young people to become self-sufficient and economically independent from parents and the government. Let's not seek complicated solutions, let's show young people that it is logical to work, to be an entrepreneur, to have good education, only those who work as best as they can will only be able to make this world a better place."

SOUNDBITE (English), Terry REINTKE (Greens/EFA, DE), "Every day young people are asking themselves what they have done wrong when people are telling them, that they just need to try harder. People are telling them to try harder, when trying harder is just not enough anymore. We need to make this very clear, this is not an individual problem of Paul from Menorca or Kasha from Krakow, and it is a systematic problem that brought about by wrong political decisions in the past. "

SOUNDBITE (French), Elisabeth MORIN-CHARTIER (EPP, FR), "Mobility is absolutely essential, yes, because the world of work for the young people today is the entire territory of the EU. There is no area where they shouldn't be active, in their lives, in their work they need that mobility and that is the first argument against unemployment that we can put."