Hollande calls for €6-bn youth unemployment spending; French consumer confidence lowest in history

French president Francois Hollande yesterday called on his fellow European leaders to pledge €6 billion of government spending in a bid to address unemployment levels that are extremely high among youth in different parts of the continent.

Hollande, who also faced the lowest recorded consumer confidence in French history yesterday, said he hoped to see the funds agreed by EU leaders during their meet in June.

According to the president, areas with youth unemployment above 25 per cent needed to be prioritised for spending increases.

In a separate development Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, also drew attention to the dire situation for jobless young people in Europe in a speech to the European Parliament yesterday, referencing the same €6 billion programme.

''Tackling youth unemployment is a long-standing priority,'' he said, adding: ''we should make sure that this initiative can be fully operational by 1 January 2014''.

Last week an EU statistical release served to focus attention on regions in the Mediterranean periphery that saw youth unemployment at 75 per cent. As against this, the rate in some Austrian and German regions was below 6 per cent.

The overall rate of youth unemployment for both Spain and Greece was now in excess of 50 per cent, with 24 per cent in the Eurozone generally. According to EU estimates, the cost in unemployment relief, lost income and taxes from young people could be as high as €153 billion per year.

Meanwhile, Europe said it was getting serious about reducing an epidemic of youth unemployment, which was rather overdue, but welcome, all the same. According to commentators German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was not exaggerating this week when he called the phenomenon a catastrophe for the EU.

As of March, 59 per cent of Greeks, 56 per cent of Spaniards, and 38 per cent of Italians and Portuguese aged 16-24 were unemployed, levels that if not reduced would permanently harm the generation that was supposed to produce growth for an aging continent. The anger could actually lead to a breakup of the EU ripping its currency apart.

The programme for tackling the issue has been dubbed ''New Deal for Europe,'' after Franklin D Roosevelt's Great Depression remedies of the 1930s and though details are still awaited, according to commentators it was no such thing.

At the core of the effort is €6 billion euros corpus  carved out of the EU's budget, with some of the money going to the European Investment Bank, which would use it to back loans to small- and medium-size enterprises in countries such as Greece and Spain in exchange for commitments to hire and train young people.

Some part of the money would go to helping young people move to find training and jobs. According to Germany's labour minister, the country had 30,000 unfilled training vacancies, and it was also organising bilateral efforts to export its vocational training expertise.