The Commission's initiative aims to "unleash the potential of young people to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in the EU" and will deal with the youth aspect of policies for the next ten years as part of the 'Europe 2020' strategy.
The three strands of action set out in the initiative are improving youth education and training, facilitating mobility for study and work, and providing a new framework for youth unemployment, which currently stands at an EU-wide average of 20.9%, up from 14.7% in March 2008.
"Finding a job is what millions of young Europeans are most concerned about. 'Youth on the Move' will create new momentum at EU and national level to improve support for young people so that they can find a job, make a living and pursue their own plans," said László Andor, the EU's commissioner for employment, social affairs and inclusion.
No clear strategy
However, the Party of European Socialists (PES) criticised the proposal and said it failed to present a clear strategy to tackle youth unemployment.
"The crisis affects in a particularly harsh way young people and if the European Commission doesn't present a clear strategy to address this, we risk losing an entire generation to youth unemployment and youth poverty," said PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who urged the Commission to introduce a youth guarantee offering young people a job, training or further education within four months of leaving school.
"The labour market for young people also needs to be strengthened: more jobs must be created, including tailor-made jobs for young people along with incentives to hire young people. Interns need to be better protected by adopting European minimum standards for internships," Rasmussen added.
Working with member states
The Commission stressed that most of the measures should be achieved by "working with" and "supporting" member states, citing in particular the EU's '2020' targets of increasing the proportion of young people in higher education from 31% in 2008 to 40% by 2020 and decreasing the number of early school leavers from 15 to 10% for the same period.
Ensuring social cohesion across the whole Union is "no easy task," said Androulla Vassiliou, commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth.
Indeed, €1 billion euro is currently earmarked for youth under the EU's lifelong learning scheme in the 2020 strategy, and €6 billion euro will come from the European Social Fund to address these causes.
Critics say that the initiative offers no new funding instruments other than a micro-finance programme whereby 45,000 loans are expected to be issued over the next eight years to the value of €500 million, if backed by European Investment Bank funding.
"We don't need any new agencies, we can use existing instruments for this," Vassiliou said.
According to recent surveys, more than 40% of employers attach great importance to the experience gained from working and studying abroad.
In response to concerns that students in one member state still cannot transfer grant funds to another, Andor said he would be "urging member states to do away" with the problem.
A scoreboard will be set up in order to rate member states' removal of the legal obstacles to learning mobility, one of the basic principles of the EC Treaty.
The Commission also intends to launch a European job vacancy monitor later this year to make it easier for young people to consider working in another member state and fill vacancies that exist under the EURES scheme.
An alternative global university ranking system will be also be launched as an alternative to ones that consistently rank US universities at the top by including 'a more complete and realistic picture of higher education performance'.
With regards to including more private sources of funding for tackling youth issues, Vassiliou cited the Commission's Green Paper on pension reform, where including internships in pension contributions is expected to feature in stakeholder discussions (EurActiv 08/07/10).
