Youth job fund 'a drop in ocean': Parliament chief

(BRUSSELS) - The six billion euros that EU leaders have earmarked to combat record high youth unemployment represents a mere "drop in the ocean," European Parliament chief Martin Schulz said Thursday.

"Releasing 6.0 billion euros ($7.8 billion) to fund this new youth employment initiative is a start; but, as we are all only too well aware, that six billion is just a drop in the ocean," Schulz said at the start of a two-day EU summit in Brussels.

Shortly before the summit began, leaders clinched a deal on its hotly-contested trillion-euro budget, opening the prospect for the 27-nation bloc to quickly disburse billions of euros to help its 5.6 million unemployed under 25-year-olds.

Youth unemployment is the main concern of the two-day summit and European president Herman Van Rompuy described it as "a most urgent concern for our societies."

Some 26 million people are out of work across the 27-nation bloc or some 11 percent of the workforce.

But youths have been hit even harder, with as many as one in four people aged between 16 and 25 out of work.

The centrepiece of the youth employment scheme is the implementation of a Europe-wide guarantee of a job or training offer for young people within four months of their finishing studies or losing their job.

But already some people are saying the six billion euros will not be enough.

"I think we would need these six billion every year to get hundreds of thousands (of unemployed young people) off the streets," said Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann.

Schulz agreed.

The cash "will not in itself be enough to solve the problem. What we, the current generation of politicians, owe these young people are good ideas, courage and prompt action -- in order to generate growth at long last," he said.

"After all, the most effective means of creating jobs -- and thus of combating youth unemployment -- is economic growth," Schulz said.