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EP President Schulz: Greece’s Youth Unemployment “Unacceptable”

The President of the European Parliament  Martin Schulz described as  “unacceptable” Greece‘s youth unemployment rate of 45 per cent, saying the heavily indebted nation should be given the chance to implement reforms and return to growth.

“The 45 per cent youth unemployment rate is unacceptable and we risk losing a generation if we do not act. Greece’s plight is Europe’s plight; we in Europe are all in the same boat, ” Schulz said after talks with Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and the President Karolos Papoulias in Athens on Tuesday.

“The latest reform programme for Greece must be fully implemented so that Greece has the opportunity to return to growth and restore its public finances to health,” he said.

Schulz urged the necessity to re-launch the Greek economy. “ All means necessary have to be used to get Greece back on the right track including the use of so far unspent structural funds, funds that are directed particularly at SMEs and start-ups, as well as using funding from the European Investment Bank.  All of these combined could give a chance to re-launch the Greek economy.”

EU-Observer  noted that “Martin Schulz is the first EU leader to go to Athens since last April, a period in which Greeks have seen their wages and pensions slashed and unemployment shoot up as the country implements a series of austerity measures in return for EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF) aid. His trip comes as both sides are becoming increasingly exasperated with one another. Eurozone politicians point to a series of failed reform promises on the part of Greek politicians, while in Athens there is frustration that the changes already made are not sufficiently appreciated. A second bail-out for the country was only agreed after months of wrangling.”

“I want to express our solidarity with the Greek people who are living through very hard times. Aid to Greece is in Greece’s interest and the wider European interest,” said Schulz ahead of the visit.

Martin Schulz will address the Greek parliament on Tuesday evening as the first senior EU politician to visit the debt-stricken country for almost a year.

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5 comments

  1. Well jerk-off, why don’t you give the youth a job? Maybe because their are none to have!!!!! Screw you and the IMF to!

  2. Invest in the country and stop paying the bankers their blood money.

    More businesses more jobs or is this a silly pipe dream ?

  3. If he thinks the unemployment is unacceptable then why not stop putting more dept on the Greece nation and let it go bankrupt. Only on the ashes of the current society/government will anything worthwhile grow and preferable outside the cancer called EU.

  4. Bureaucrats like Schulz have never created a single job.