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Wednesday, almost at the same time when European Commission were meeting to adopt their proposal for EU 2020 strategy, representatives from different embassies, organisations and companies replied to the invitation of the European Movement International to discuss the economic and social future of Europe in the briefing “EU 2020 Strategy: Raising the Game!”
I did not see a lot of youth organisations in the participants’ list – just me, representing AEGEE-Europe, and representative from European Youth Forum. And no wonder, because I do not think that a lot of youth organisations are aware of the outcomes and results of Lisbon strategy and the new EU 2020 strategy.
To give you a short overview without going into too many details, most of the speakers of the briefing admitted that Lisbon strategy has completely failed and it did not reach its aims as it was not implemented in the right way.
However, some of the speakers also pointed out that the new strategy has the same potential to fail as it does not reflect the current situation and state of Europe and the needs of Europeans. Philippe de Buck, Director General of Business Europe, event mentioned that the new strategy should be EU 2014 as it’s the end of the mandate of this European Commission and they should be responsible for what has been done. As now it’ll be EU 2020, it’ll be three different cycles of the Commission, which might create the result that nobody feels responsible for.
For me as a representative of European youth the most interesting was speech of Pat Cox, President of the European Movement, as he noted that 21% of European youth are unemployed, but in some countries (like in Latvia, country where I am coming from) it’s even 42,6%! Also the current level of general unemployment now is the highest since 1990ies.
When I remember the recent open call we made to AEGEE network – launching a new project about youth (un)employment, I understand why we had so many applications from interested people who want to take part in the project. This topic really relates to us all, no matter how old we are and from which countries do we come from.
Today we in the headoffice also received a letter from European Youth Forum, who are asking us to contribute and shape the opinion of youth about EU 2020 strategy. Now it’s our time to act and raise our voice about things we would like to see implemented as young people!