ITALY aims to focus on solving the problem of youth unemployment across the whole of Europe while presiding over the Council of the European Union for the next six months.
Italian Ambassador to Slovakia Roberto Martini discussed his country’s plans for the presidency at a press conference on July 8.
As there are more than 26 million unemployed in Europe, we have to focus on creating new jobs, helping competitiveness and supporting the growth of the European economy, he said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. The key point is fighting youth unemployment through the effective introduction of a system of guarantee for the young, together with investing in education, training and labour mobility.
Long-term goals and the joint programme which the EU Council will deal with in the next 18 months are prepared by member states in so-called trios, with the current presidency trio consisting of Italy, Latvia and Luxembourg, which will head the EU Council in 2015. Martini added that the priorities of the upcoming trio will be economic growth and job creation, the Europe 2020 strategy, a unified market including the digital market, the European monetary union, the framework of climate and energy policy until 2030, justice and internal matters, the open market, strategic partnerships with the US and Japan and the European neighbour policy.
Head of EC representation in Slovakia Dušan Chrenek deemed it symbolic that the EU started getting out of the crisis during the Greek presidency of the EU Council, as the country was hardest hit, and EU problems were most evident there. He added, however, as quoted by TASR, that ever since Greece started enacting tough measures, no one talks about it leaving the EU anymore.
(Source: TASR)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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