Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to develop a critical perspective on unemployment policies for young people. Our framework consists both of questioning the existence of processes of convergence in the ways European countries currently attempt to tackle youth unemployment, and of evaluating the successes and failures of present national arrangements. To achieve these aims, we draw together and summarise key findings, criticisms and policy recommendations made by the research partnership grouping involved in the EU-funded Leonardo daVinci programme project, ‘Integration through training?’. Where appropriate, interview extracts and typologies will be used to illustrate key points made. The Leonardo da Vinci project was a two-year, collaborative, cross-national study that was carried out by researchers working in eight EU countries (Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, France and the UK) between 1999 and 2001. The final report was entitled Integration through training? Comparing the effectiveness of strategies to promote the integration of unemployed young people in the aftermath of the 1997 Luxembourg Summit (Furlong and McNeish, 2001).

Aims, objectives and research process

The starting point for the project was the 1997 Luxembourg Summit on employment, and more specifically the common policy measures and foundational guiding principles agreed by EU member states that aim to promote the social and economic integration of unemployed young people (18-25 age group). As drafted in the official statement that emerged from the summit, the various principles agreed by the EU governments are generally quite vague. Nevertheless, one specific and pivotal commitment does stand out around which the other guidelines revolve; that is, to offer all young people, by the end of 2002, what is termed ‘a new start’ before they have been unemployed for six months or more (see EC, 1999). Despite its ambiguity, this commitment gave the research project a focus whereby the range of ongoing and developing training programmes, educational initiatives and labour market schemes in each of the eight partner countries could not only be contrasted and compared in terms of best practice, but could also be evaluated in terms of their likelihood of meeting this target.

Hence, the central aims of the project were:

• • to highlight differences and similarities of approach to the problem of the socioeconomic integration of unemployed young people;

• • to exchange knowledge of the effectiveness of policies aimed at reducing the risk of marginalisation and exclusion;