Germany sees revolution if welfare model scrapped
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned on Tuesday that failure to win the battle against youth unemployment could tear Europe apart, while abandoning the continent’s welfare model in favour of tougher U.S. standards would cause “revolution”.
Germany, along with France and Italy, backed urgent action to rescue a generation of young Europeans who fear they will not find jobs, with youth unemployment in the EU standing at nearly one in four, more than twice the adult rate.
“We need to be more successful in our fight against youth unemployment, otherwise we will lose the battle for Europe’s unity,” Schaeuble said.
While Germany insists on the importance of budget consolidation, Schaeuble spoke of the need to preserve Europe’s welfare model.
If U.S. welfare standards were introduced in Europe, “we would have revolution, not tomorrow, but on the very same day,” Schaeuble told a conference in Paris.
“We have to rescue an entire generation of young people who are scared. We have the best-educated generation and we are putting them on hold. This is not acceptable,” Italian Labour minister Enrico Giovannini said.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor
via Germany sees revolution if welfare model scrapped | Reuters.
Commission denies Germany’s ‘dangerous’ criticism of youth jobs fight
As Germany and France meet today (28 May) over a joint youth employment initiative, EU officials have rebuffed as “groundless” and “dangerous” criticism from the German finance minister that the Commission is failing to address joblessness, EurActiv Germany reports.
Ministers from both countries will unveil in Paris the initiative blueprint and allow the European Investment Bank to unlock billions of euros in loans to companies to create jobs for young people.
The proposals have been called a “New Deal for Europe” and echo the drive by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to cut United States unemployment in the 1930s, the Rheinische Post reported this month.
But sources say German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has angered the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso. Schäuble’s complaint that the Commission has been ineffective in its approach towards fighting youth unemployment has not gone down well amongst other EU officials either.
They accuse Schäuble of trying to deflect blame towards the Commission “because Germany has had to take a lot of flak for its perceived policy of pure austerity in Europe”, say EU sources interviewed by EurActiv.de.
At the public broadcaster WDR’s Europaforum, a yearly forum on the future of Europe, Schäuble said the Commission had been too slow in implementing unemployment support programmes in Portugal and Greece. “In the end nothing will happen because [the commissioners] stall each other,” he said.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor
via Commission denies Germany’s ‘dangerous’ criticism of youth jobs fight | EurActiv.
En français @ Moniteur de l’emploi
E / Chômage des jeunes / L’Allemagne et la France se réunissent aujourd’hui
Alors que des ministres allemands et français se réunissent aujourd’hui (28 mai) à propos d’une initiative conjointe sur le chômage des jeunes, des fonctionnaires de l’UE ont rejeté les critiques du ministre allemand des finances, selon lesquelles la Commission ne parvient pas à s’attaquer au chômage. Les fonctionnaires ont qualifié ces critiques d’« infondées » et de … Lire la suite »
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