"What Europeans want is jobs. That is what they are most worried about and that is where we must act. There are two particularly important proposals in the Commission's employment package: setting decent minimum wages to fight poverty and social dumping and creating a European Youth Guarantee to get young people into work", Pervenche Berès (S&D, FR), the author of the resolution, said during the debate.

More than six million jobs have been lost in the EU since the financial and economic crisis began in 2008 and 17.6 million new jobs need to be filled to meet the target set in the EU 2020 Strategy, stresses Parliament in its resolution. It urges EU governments to commit to a "European Investment Package" before the end of 2012 to "push Europe out of the crisis.

MEPs also welcomed the attention paid in the Commission's policy paper to the benefits of setting minimum wages at member state level to fight in-work poverty and social dumping.

To tackle the high level of youth unemployment, Parliament again calls for a system of European Youth Guarantees to provide a job or training for every young person who has been out of work for four months. It also wants a Quality Framework for Traineeships to ensure that interns learn from their experience and are not exploited.

László Andor, the European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, has welcomed the European Parliament's resolutions.

Source: European Parliament