Commitment appropriations for the Youth Employment Initiative; resources for the Investment for growth and jobs goal

The Committee on Regional Development adopted the report by Iskra MIHAYLOVA (ALDE, BG) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 as regards the resources for economic, social and territorial cohesion and correcting that Regulation as regards the resources for the Investment for growth and jobs goal.

The committee recommended that the European Parliament adopt its position at first reading, taking over the Commission proposal.

As a reminder, the proposal to amend the Regulation laying down common provisions applicable to the European Structural and Investment Funds (‘ESI Fund’) concerns the financing of the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) in 2018.

The YEI is part of the Youth Guarantee, which is a scheme whereby Member States implement measures to ensure that young people up to the age of 25 receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of leaving school or becoming unemployed.

The present proposal frontloads some of the 2020 appropriations for the YEI to 2018. An increase in the budgetary means for the YEI in 2018 was agreed in the budgetary negotiations for 2018. The increase is considerable, namely by an amount of EUR 116.7 million, which brings the total YEI budget for 2018 to EUR 350 million.

The amount of commitment appropriations for 2020 needs to be adjusted downwards accordingly to reflect the frontloading to 2018.

The Committee on Regional Development has therefore decided to follow the simplified procedure for this textually minor amendment to the Regulation on common provisions and proposed the rapid adoption of the proposal, without amendments.