Employment for youth and German elections

 “A ridiculous amount,” is how Peer Steinbrueck, German Social Democratic Politician and candidate for Chancellor of Germany, called the amount allocated by the European Union to help young people out of unemployment. In that they are both in full electoral campaign, perhaps Angela Merkel’s antagonist at the next election is not all wrong: if you look at what has been done by the same Federal Republic, which in 2009 alone spent more than 10 billion Euro for its plan to support youth employment – a plan that mixes school and work starting from 16 years old and seems to work.

It is for this that Merkel had initially invited only Labor Ministers and Heads of Employment Agencies to Berlin on Wednesday but then she was compelled to welcome about 20 Heads of State, Francois Hollande as lead for government, Enrico Letta first. It’s sort of a “mini European summit,” where Berlin wants to show others how good it is and to its citizens how good their leadership is in light of the elections which will occur in less than 3 months. “The decision of the European leaders to concentrate specifically on the struggle against youth unemployment is the reflection of how it is politically easier to convince people that something must be done about this;” explains Janis Emmanouilidis, a ½ Greek ½ German Economist, Senior Researcher at the European Policy Center in Brussels, the city where fewer and fewer scholars believe that this policy for youth is a priority objective. It is a way to transfer money to countries that don’t need it, explains the scholar, “without having to explain too clearly to their citizens.” According to another Economist, the German Daniel Gros, instead of focusing on youth “who will find work at the end of the crisis anyway, it would be wise to think about the 40-50 year olds who have families who depend on them and who make significantly higher contributions to the pension system.”

There is another very concrete risk, Emmanouilidis says: “Governments and European Union Institutions are raising expectations of salvation that risk not being met in the end. They could have a cushioning effect immediately but then without fundamental reforms on a national level, where the real responsibility resides in this field, could completely fail.” And therefore, in a year, when the unemployed ask where their work is, at the moment, they don’t actually see where it could be, so that’s how the more populist forces could take the upper hand at the next European elections.

The German suggestions are a little like those already included in the European plan, which foresee, in essence, mixing work and training, creating favorable hiring conditions for businesses could possibly not be enough says Emmanouilidis, according to whom “we need a more general and profound plan or a more modest approach, which doesn’t create false expectations.” And hopefully it will be less honed on the electoral needs of Chancellor Merkel.