At the opening session of Open Days the European Alliance group President Dr Uno Silberg called on EU institutions' Presidents present to bring in concrete actions to deal with the increasing levels of youth unemployment.

Political group's Presidents with Presidents of European Institutions during the OPEN DAYS opening session 2012

He said: "what is very worrying is the huge increase in youth unemployment – if we do not act then we risk losing a 'generation'.  If we really want to make a difference then we need to tackle the issue of youth unemployment, and the current signals that the European Commission has ran out of money for Erasmus and other youth programmes is a very serious situation.

Dr Silberg also added that: "too often the economic crisis is being used, by governments, to centralise initiatives and funds.  Whereas the real issue here is to provide local and regional authorities with the funding so that they can set the conditions to have the green growth initiatives." 

Copy of the speech is available in Estonian