ILPC 2027

 The introduction of the Youth Guarantee in April 2013 was one of the initiatives through which the EU and the member states underlined their determination to undertake a proactive involvement in actions supporting youth potential. The new initiative pledges “to ensure that all young people under the age of 25 years receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education”. The Youth Guarantee includes a two-fold approach. On one hand, it aims at raising awareness on youth prospects and, thus, enhancing stronger commitments to the issue amid an increased danger of a “lost generation”. On the other hand, it attempts to mobilise more human and financial resources in order to achieve the social integration and the smoother labour market transition of young individuals. The paper focuses on the implementation of the Youth Guarantee in Greece. For many years the country’s socioeconomic environment has been experiencing intense challenges. Young people seem to be among those groups who have been more seriously affected. For this reason, their social and professional integration has been designated as a primary issue of concern in the national policy agenda. The Youth Guarantee initiative aspires to offer support to such an inclusion and its implementation presents interesting dimensions. First, the paper makes a short reference to the institutional framework regarding youth policies that is under development in the EU and targets the establishment of better prospects for young people. Also, it describes the socioeconomic environment of Greece and places special emphasis on the fields of employment and education, which can determine the orientation and the content of pro-youth policy interventions. Then, the paper proceeds by analysing the Youth Guarantee plan of Greece in order to designate its particular characteristics and its adjustment to the national needs and to the initiative’s principles. The organisational and administrative details, the funding provisions and the role of stakeholders in the initiative’s implementation are highlighted. Finally, the paper attempts an evaluation of the Youth Guarantee schemes after the first two years of implementation. Such an assessment will either reveal deficiencies or indicate good practices, which in the long-term would serve as useful experiences for the future projects in the country, as well as for the overall reconsideration of the initiative at European level.