More than 5m young Europeans are jobless. We need to help this lost generation | Jacques Delors

The EU should pay for a million young people to gain professional training and skills in member states other than their own

The plight of numerous young people in Europe is a serious cause for concern, with some 5 million of them - one in four of those eligible to work - currently looking for a job. In some countries, that figure skyrockets to one in two. We are looking at the tragic prospect of a lost, doomed generation.

Initiatives have been launched at the European level. However, the overall result has remained disappointing to this day. Most of them support what continue to be national initiatives - this is notably the case for the "Youth Guarantee" and the a6.4bn (4.6bn) allotted for the fight against youth unemployment. Some are designed to encourage mobility, such as "Your First EURES Job". This is a move in the right direction, but it is too weak, and it certainly is not the kind of approach - either in its modesty or in its mechanisms - that is going to have any significant impact on youth unemployment levels.

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