The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), the European Training Foundation (ETF), the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) held a seminar on youth employment at the European Parliament on 30 June 2011.

Presenting different aspects of youth employment in Europe and its neighbourhood countries, the agencies highlighted the complementarity of their work. The ETF was represented by Madlen Serban, the director, and Anastasia Fetsi, Head of the ETF’s Thematic Expertise Development Department, who presented the situation of youth in the Southern European Neighbourhood.

Some of the policy pointers agreed at the seminar:

• Young people with a vocational education and training qualification entering the labour market have a better chance of finding a job than low skilled or higher skilled people. Vocational education and training is thus a key structural element of education and employment policies. It is instrumental in matching young people to jobs and it facilitates the transition to the world of work.

• Enhancing the quality and relevance of vocational education and training is necessary for improving its attractiveness, also in the partner countries. Good examples of well-functioning dual training systems exist in some Member States, and can be taken as a source of inspiration for others.

• The Southern Mediterranean countries, with a very young population, labour markets characterised by important territorial disparities and the coexistence between a modern and a traditional economic sector, and subject to centralised governance systems, need to make a concerted effort to support job creation through, inter alia, the development of SMEs, an increase in the capacity of regional development and the need to invest in sectors which have the potential to improve the functioning of the labour market and overcome segmentation.

• The Southern Mediterranean countries count on the continued support of the international community to help them address the huge challenges they are currently facing. Bilateral relations with individual Member States support from and close cooperation with the European Union and its institutions as a whole and at all levels, are considered vital in these turbulent times. The European Union has to increase its role in the Middle East at a political level, but also at operational and technical levels.