Payment of 1 billion euro in pre-financing for the Youth Employment Initiative

Payment of 1 billion euro in pre-financing for the Youth Employment Initiative

Today the European Commission has made almost 1 billion euro available for the young unemployed.

The decision to exceptionally increase the pre-financing in 2015 for projects helping young people in Europe through the Youth Employment Initiative is unprecedented.

It shows the EU's commitment to bringing young people back into jobs. Member States will now be able to finance projects rapidly, as the amount of pre-financing they receive before launching a project will be increased up to 30 times.

We hope to be able to help up to 650.000 young people find jobs, apprenticeships, traineeships or continued education.

Background

The YEI has been designed to address the immense challenge of youth unemployment in Europe, with over 7 million young Europeans without a job and not in education or training. A dedicated budget has been set aside for the YEI worth €6.4 billion.

The pre-financing amount has been increased from 1% - 1.5% to 30% of the specific YEI allocation, to counteract budgetary constraints faced by Member States and the lack of available funding at the initial stage of the programming period.