Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to extend a very warm welcome to everyone at today's committee meeting; I take pleasure in this opportunity of presenting and explaining the Presidency's priorities for young people.
I have already had an opportunity of attending your committee, during my initial informal talks with Chairman Sifounakis on 4 October 2005, and so I am particularly pleased to be here again today.
Continuing your work, and that of the European Parliament as a whole, is essential for achieving a good outcome, and so I consider it especially important.
It is of particular consequence for the Austrian Presidency that young people's issues should receive greater attention in all areas.
The main aim is to offer young people prospects, both at work and in society.
It is important for me that we should turn words into deeds for young people: employment, education and participation, as well as integration and mobility are the main priorities already established in the Youth Pact.
It is also important that young people should be actively involved in political processes. This is the only way to create new quality for the future of European young people.
As Austria's Minister for Youth I am responsible for all areas: of non-formal education for young people,promoting young people and providing them with information, but also participation through the Federal Law on Youth Participation [Bundesjugendvertretungsgesetz] and the Federal Law on the Advancement of Young People [Bundesjugendförderungsgesetz] and for youth welfare.
My department is responsible for carrying out the EU Youth Programme in Austria and will also be supervising EU-level discussions in the Education, Youth and Cultural Affairs Council.
Programme for the Council Presidency
As regards our programme, I can inform you that in addition to official Council meetings, there are other youth-related events planned during Austria's Presidency of the EU.
There will be an informal Conference of Youth Ministers in Bad Ischl from 29 to 31 March, in which we shall be actively involving young people themselves, because we want to see young people taking part, even in the Ministerial Conference – we take youth participation seriously.
Before the Ministerial Conference there will be a youth event from 28 to 30 March. By getting young people to take part, I hope to give them a better understanding of the EU.
The informal meeting of the Council Working Party on Youth will be held in Vienna on 21 and 22 June.
Priorities
During Austria's Presidency of the Council we shall be focussing on priorities which we are actively working on and which we want to see put into effect.
European Youth Pact:
The European Youth Pact is right at the top of our list of priorities. The very fact that the Heads of State or Government adopted the European Youth Pact in March 2005 shows the important role allotted to young people in the revised Lisbon Process.
And so the European Youth Pact will be a leitmotiv of Austria's Presidency of the Council too. The Commission will be analysing the national Lisbon reform programmes in its spring report to the European Council in March 2006.
The Presidency will then submit conclusions on the implementation of the Youth Pact on the basis of the European Commission's progress report to the Council of Ministers on 23 February 2006.
In future, emphasis will be placed on mainstreaming young people's issues into all policy areas, and greater effectiveness and clearer monitoring of measures to help young people.
Ministers for Youth have considerable coordination responsibilities, including at national level. In future, they are to see that youth issues are included in the development of policies for employment, social integration, education and mobility, in line with the European Council's mandate of March 2005.
Action "ON young people" can only work and produce useful results if in future it becomes action "WITH young people".
I should like to stress two important aspects of the European Youth Pact:
Combating poverty and social exclusion is especially dear to my heart. We cannot and must not allow children across the EU to live in the shadow of poverty.
At the informal meeting of Social Affairs and Employment Ministers in Villach last week I pointed out that the European Union has to make determined efforts to end poverty.
All the Member States must step up their efforts to promote social integration, including, above all, the integration of young people with special needs and disabilities.
I am expecting a great deal in this connection from the new streamlined process for social integration and social protection, so that the combination of social security, employment and growth – here too the Youth Pact has its place – can produce tangible results.
It is precisely in the context of the new Lisbon Strategy that we need more systematic and transparent reporting on the Pact, in order to make it easier to verify delivery and to share best practice.
Family benefits and social security are basic weapons against child poverty. However, working mothers are also a major factor in ensuring a decent family income these days and so it should be made easier to reconcile work with family responsibilities.
Demographic trends also require action on our part, since the combination of increased life expectancy and a reduced birth rate is going to cause a long-term shift in the ratio of working to retired people.
If we know that by 2050 the number of children under 15 will have fallen by nearly 20%, while the number of people in the 64 to 79 age bracket will have risen by 44% and the number of the "very old" (80 and over) by as much as 180%, then we know that youth is a scant resource and that we have to be proactive.
Here too the approach has got to be to make it easier to reconcile work and family responsibilities.
My department is organising its own high-level expert conference in Vienna at which business representatives will also play a major role.
The Austrian Presidency is anxious that the European Youth Pact should produce tangible results and this will also be a major theme of the Conference of European Youth Ministers in Bad Ischl from 29 to 31 March 2006.
In the run up to this conference, starting on 28 March, 100 young people from all over Europe will be taking part in a youth event in Vienna.
They will be dealing, from their point of view, with important issues such as young people and work, the recognition of non-formal and informal learning and the future of Europe's young people.
It is planned to submit their joint findings and the resulting demands to politicians and the European Commission in Bad Ischl in the form of a declaration.
Preparations for the Conference are being made in cooperation with the European Commission and the European Youth Forum, together with Austrian youth organisations. Partnership with the youth organisations, as the young people's mouthpiece, is indispensable.
Recognition of non-formal and informal learning within the European youth field:
As part of European measures for life-long learning, Austria is planning to discuss a Resolution on the recognition of the value of non-formal and informal learning within the European youth field during its Presidency, this being another significant aspect of the European Youth Pact.
It is increasingly important that abilities should be put to good use in the non-formal sector and to take account of its role as a complement to the formal education and training sector.
The Education, Youth and Culture Council is to adopt the Resolution on 18/19 May 2006.
EU Youth in Action programme:
Austria will also use its best endeavours to secure speedy adoption of the new Youth in Action programme (2007 to 2013).
It is particularly important to me to make the "European undertaking" more accessible to young people, so that they can gain a better understanding of it and come to see its merits, so that they can experience it for themselves and carry it forward. Europe's future lies in the hands of its young people.
During its Presidency Austria will therefore be pressing ahead with the work that still remains to be done, in cooperation with the European Parliament.
The partly political agreement already reached at the EU Council of Ministers on 15 November 2005, under the UK Presidency, was an important step forward in the discussions on the new programme.
The agreement on the financial perspective reached by the Heads of State or Government on 15 and 16 December 2005 is now the basis for future negotiations with the European Parliament. As soon as we get agreement on the budget between the Parliament and the Council, the questions still outstanding as regards the programme budget and age limits can be speedily dispatched.
Here too I should like to stress that we must have recourse to and intensify the tried and tested cooperation between our two Institutions and, as soon as the budgetary aspects are clear, coordinate agreement on the content of the programme. I hope that the first half of 2006 will prove a fruitful time for European youth policy.
Thank you very much for listening to me today; I am looking forward to working together with all the members of this committee over the coming months.
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