European youth commissioner meets Croatian youth minister

Young people's exclusion from the labour market and democratic processes leads to the strengthening of extremism and political radicalism, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Tibor Navracsics said in Zagreb on Wednesday.

Navracsics met with Social Policy and Youth Minister Milanka Opacic to discuss youth unemployment, a problem faced by the entire EU, the government said in a statement.

Commissioner Navracsics said that young people were among the social groups most affected by the economic crisis.

We are trying to help member-states in overcoming challenges in youth unemployment, he said, underlining that Croatia was active in dealing with the problem of youth unemployment and that the EU supported its efforts.

Opacic informed the EU official about the government's measures designed to reduce youth unemployment through on-the-job training, incentives for employers hiring young people, loans for self-employment, additional training and re-training.

The two officials also discussed peer violence, with Opacic saying that a positive example of how to deal with that problem was a national campaign called "Say No To Internet Violence", by which her ministry had joined the Council of Europe's web campaign "No Hate Speech Movement", the government statement said

(Hina) 

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