One in five young people in the eurozone is unemployed today.
This means 20% of young people are excluded from economic life.
Does this situation have an impact on the French presidential election?
Can Europe do something about it?
This is the question we will be debating today in the European Parliament.
Hello and welcome to the EURACTIV debate
on new forms of engagement for young people in civil and political life.
My name is Aline Robert and I have the pleasure today of hosting Sylvie Goulard.
You are an MEP in the centrist ALDE group
and you support Emmanuel Macron for the French presidency.
Hello
And Philippe Juvin, you are an MEP and Europe spokesman for the Republican Party
and you support François Fillon.
Thank you, hello.
Welcome
Today we will debate the place of young people in our society
and how they can express themselves, notably in the context of the presidential election.
Sylvie Goulard, what role can young people under the age of 25 play in this campaign?
I think we need to put things into perspective here.
What worries me is not so much the campaign but the accumulation of debts to future generations.
There is the ecological debt, which has got considerably worse,
when you look at the harm that has been done to biodiversity and the climate.
There are of course the efforts of the Paris Agreement,
but we will see whether the theory is backed up in practice, particularly by the Trump administration.
And in France, we have the financial debt,
which is a second factor, in my opinion, that weighs on the morale of young people.
We do not have to give young people any particular advantage,
we just have to ensure that they have the place in society that they deserve
at a time when technological progress is widening the gap between the generations.
There has always been a generation gap,
and when you have children you are often reminded which side of this gap you stand,
but I think this situation, due to this eternal gap,
as well as to the lack of renewal in the French political scene over recent years,
means young people have felt excluded.
So it is particularly important to give them the space they need in society.
Indeed, close to one third of young people voted for the extreme right in the last regional elections in France.
We see that there is a feeling of exclusion, so how should we respond to it?
If we look at it over a very long period, the positions of young people are fairly consistent:
a rejection of the system, a desire to throw off a certain number of institutional rules.
There is not that much difference.
If you look at this over the long term you see the same ideas resurfacing.
With one element that criticises the older people,
that is people like us,
which is a certain demagogic attitude towards young people,
which consists in saying that, given the equal nature of each person,
no matter what their age, and we are mainly talking about young people,
it follows that each person should have an equally valid political voice.
I think that it is our responsibility simply to state that politics is the meeting of ideas.
By coming together we test our own ideas,
we transpose what often begins as a feeling into a concept and an idea.
And this intellectual work has to be done in a mature way.
Sometimes, when we are young, we have all been there, we are not aware of that.
Politics requires a great deal of maturity, I do not think we should be demagogic with young people.
Today we have new tools that allow us to modify this political expression.
There are new channels like the social networks Facebook and Twitter,
which provide new platforms for debate.
Has this changed anything in the way you campaign?
To answer your question, I think the changes brought about by the introduction of social networks
and new tools have a particular impact on young people, but not only young people.
The biggest user of Twitter at the moment has got to be Donald Trump,
and I am not sure that America’s youth is hanging on to every word he says.
So there are new tools, they can be used well or badly,
but of course the generations that were born with these tools can sometimes lack perspective,
or as Philippe Juvin just said, maturity.
There is a kind of instantaneity, a belief that everything can be done straight away,
which may not be ideal, but again we can see
that these tools can also be dangerous in the hands of people who are supposedly more mature.
Among these new tools we have new forms of expression of our citizenship or political positions,
notably the European Citizens’ Initiative.
Has this tool brought anything new to the relationship between European citizens and politicians?
Do you believe this is a positive tool?
You are quite right, new tools, by definition, bring new things.
You have mentioned social networks and the European Citizens’ Initiative.
Indeed, any tool of direct democracy, whether it is institutionalised or not,
does bring something to the table.
But, and you may find me both politically incorrect and rather disgruntled this morning,
I must say that sometimes when we are young
– and sometimes also when we get older; you mentioned Mr Trump earlier –
we tend to be simplistic and Manichean.
Why? Because it is easier, because you do not have to have thought about things so deeply,
there are the good guys and the bad guys, this is good and that is bad…
And the tools you mentioned, social networks like Facebook and Twitter,
could be positive for the debate but in reality they are not as positive as we think.
Often there is no real debate but a succession of monologues
from people who do not listen to one another.
Firstly, I’m sorry but it is very difficult to make a convincing argument in 140 characters,
in the case of Twitter.
But beyond the form, all you have to do is look at the so-called “debates”
that follow the broadcast interventions of any politician on Twitter:
either you are crucified or you are lauded.
But the proportion of people that actually try to find a meaningful balance
in their political reflections is extremely low.
It is easy to see: the simplest ideas are the most popular on Twitter.
And that is pretty desperate.
Do not confuse the soapbox with debate.
People believe they are part of a debate but in reality they are just talking to themselves.
Among these technological innovations there are also tools
that can be a source of employment for young people.
There are all the collaborative platforms
and the whole sharing economy that could be a solution
solution to the problems of the eurozone, at least for one in five young people.
Is this a good solution?
Should Europe do more to encourage the development of this kind of economy?
Can we see these platforms as job creators? Yes.
I would say there is a good side - excuse me Philippe - to the more determined views of young people,
and that is that they can also serve as a moral stimulus.
The interest of young people in business schools,
in different kinds of training for the cooperative and solidary economy,
in businesses that make efforts - whether for their own image or out of genuine concern -
to be greener or that take greater notice of social issues or equality.
I think this shows that young people have a lot to offer in terms of improvements to the capitalist system.
They very inventive, both when working in these kinds of platforms but also in more classic businesses.
We have all had the chance to visit these kinds of businesses
and to see how young people can bring a new vision of the economy.
The important thing is to find work for young people, of course,
not to hem them into one sector,
and maybe to harness their inventiveness
to bring businesses up to date with the demands of their generation.
The CVs we receive even for internships in the European Parliament are incredible.
I am in awe of all these young people who are only 25 years old
but have already done humanitarian work in Africa or Vietnam or Madagascar and who speak four languages.
I think they are also more competent,
and we should have the humility to accept the fact
that we have not done a bad job of raising some of them and that they are overtaking us.
After all, this should really be the objective of any parent.
You are right.
With these platforms, which are extremely multifaceted,
we have the ability to create alternatives to the traditional world of work.
This means that young people, as well as less young people, have direct access to their clients,
can generate clients where there are none today.
It is clear that these are rich tools of personal and professional fulfilment.
If Europe today does not have its own champions
– of course we have champions but perhaps not at the same level as the big American names –
we need to create the legal, regulatory, fiscal and cultural conditions
to allow European platforms to become just as competitive in the world as the American platforms.
Sylvie Goulard earlier you mentioned the disparities within the youth unemployment figures in Europe.
We have very unequal situations that can create feelings of exclusion or jealousy.
Is Europe working on this?
Is there a solution, like an EU-wide unemployment insurance system,
for example, to try and combat this inequality?
I think people need to understand that this is also the consequence of a choice
– which I consider to be a wise choice –
which is not to give Europe responsibility for everything.
Responsibility for social policy, education policy, for professional training, for housing, stays at national level.
For example, if a country like Austria or Germany has much better youth employment figures than us,
it is because their system of professional training is better.
This is first and foremost a national issue.
This is why the up-coming presidential election in France has a big European dimension,
because what our country decides to do will impact whether it is in any state to play its role in Europe.
We will maybe also try to build a system that works instead of complaining about having one that doesn’t.
Some things can be done at European level.
The reason I am in favour of a eurozone budget
is because it could be used to finance mobility policies which, in theory at least,
are supposed to complement the single currency.
When you have a single currency,
the theory dictates that the workforce should be more mobile than it currently is in Europe.
In the United States, for example, people are infinitely more mobile,
but they do not have the same language barriers.
So there are issues with training and budgets,
we could also turn towards greater convergence,
– we have slightly abandoned this objective,
which was inherent to the creation of the euro and the single market –
but once again, this is convergence that we can achieve either based on regulatory standards
or through healthy competition between economic actors.
Philippe Juvin do you agree with this idea of a eurozone budget and greater convergence and integration?
Yes I absolutely agree with this point, and I even think that maybe we need to go further.
President François Hollande, like Jean-Claude Juncker, has spoken of a multi-speed Europe,
which is an idea I have supported for a number of years, along with many other Republicans.
We think it is unrealistic to think that everyone will want to go much further together
and that we will have to persuade some countries to do much more
– particularly on the integration of the eurozone,
the policy of a European treasury,
possibly even the mutualisation of debts and shared fiscal resources –
but all this will not be possible with 28 countries.
So we will probably have to accept a Europe made up of several circles if we want it to survive.
I fear that if we do not do this
and we continue to hope that everyone will want to move forward at the same pace,
we will move slowly but surely towards the inevitable disaster,
which is the decay and collapse of the system.
Philippe Juvin, thank you for your participation.
Thank you Sylvie Goulard.
It is good to finish on such a positive note!
Good luck with the rest of the campaign.