The record unemployment blighting much of Europe will be the focus of attention at a two-day EU summit set to open in Brussels, BBC News reports.
Across the EU, nearly a quarter of people aged 18 to 25 have no job. In Greece and Spain more than half of people in that age group are jobless.
EU leaders will consider mobilizing 6bn euros ($8bn) earlier than planned to help youth training schemes. There are also plans to boost bank lending to small businesses.
A source at the European Commission said an extra 10bn euros in funding for the European Investment Bank (EIB) could be used to encourage private banks to lend more to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), especially in the struggling southern "periphery" economies hit hard by the euro crisis.
The idea is to turn that 10bn into EIB guarantees worth 100bn – enough to cover loans issued by private banks. The source stressed that "it is not new money" – it would come from the EU structural funds already earmarked for Europe's poorer regions.
The focus is on SMEs because they account for about 99% of businesses in the EU, employing about 70% of the workforce, the Commission said. Despite the SMEs' importance in EU labour markets, bank lending to them fell by 10% in the first quarter of this year.
But the source told journalists at a pre-summit briefing that coordinating action on jobs "is not easy at European level – social policy is mainly a national competence".
The Commission's Youth Guarantee plan would offer young people across Europe a quality apprenticeship or job in the first four months after becoming unemployed or leaving formal education.
The leaders will also discuss progress towards a eurozone banking union, as their finance ministers continue tough negotiations on a planned joint bank resolution scheme to deal with troubled banks.
