In March 2010 the European Commission (EC) released the Europe 2020, a ten-year strategy which aims at making Europe a dynamic and competitive economy. Europe 2020 focuses mainly on R&D, reducing school drop-outs, the number of people living in poverty and greenhouse gas emissions , but its most important goal is to achieve an employment rate of 75% at EU-level by 2020. The latter will be at the centre of attention in this policy paper. The context will be youth unemployment in Italy.
In order to achieve an employment rate of 75% the European Employment Strategy (EES) was designed by the Treaty of Amsterdam. This concept consists of annual guidelines and targets for Members States (MSs) based on the 2020 goals in order to attain more cohesion between national employment policies and ultimately higher employment rates. It is coordinated by the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), which is a method of intergovernmental soft law based on policy learning, peer pressure and naming and shaming. The EES is built around four pillars: employability, adaptability, entrepreneurship and equal opportunities. Each of these pillars are subdivided by different types of packages, such as the youth employment package, with targets for a specific part of the labour market. .
As one can see in Table 1.0 something needs to be done to lower the youth unemployment rates in Europe. Europe 27 has an youth unemployment rate of 22" compared to a rate of 16,2% in the United States. Countries such as Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece have been suffering from the financial crises and have currently youth unemployment rates of above 35%. Especially young people have been hit hard in the labour market due to the last in first out principle. This means the EU has to encourage these countries to reducing unemployment rates and to support young people to participate in the labour market. It should also promote national governments to emphasise on education and skill training.