Mr. Koos Richelle:

It would be a job with limited working hours paying €400 per month and neither the employer nor the employee has to pay taxes and social security on it, although they would still be insured. It has worked out in Germany for the likes of women who are seeking to work 15 hours per week or students, but there are also people outside these categories who have had to survive in these jobs and sometimes cannot get out of a mini-job. Sometimes the hours would be longer than for a part-time equivalent, which causes some problems.

We have addressed the issues of in-work poverty in all countries, including those which have a surplus. Germany has been identified in the framework of the alert mechanism report as a country that will have an in-depth review, as the trade surplus represents an imbalance for the future. It is not to emphasise Germany's role towards the rest of Europe but rather an imbalance for the country. If there is a surplus, it is not being used for other purposes. One can discuss the likes of minimum wage levels in this respect.

Senator Kathryn Reilly has asked about issues still under negotiation, but we hope they will be concluded this week. They include the common provision regulation, in particular, and the application of macroeconomic conditionality. In setting up Structural Funds for the years 2014 to 2020 the Commission has made the proposal that these funds should be used in line with recommendations made by the European Council which establishes recommendations in order to ensure these European funds serve the better functioning of monetary union as a whole. Member states have tried very hard to loosen the conditionality link a little and part of our proposals was macroeconomic conditionality if a country was in a position where there was an imbalance. In a gradation of steps, there would be a limitation on the freedom of use of Structural Funds. One of the issues concerning macroeconomic conditionality is that a state not have a serious imbalance. Everybody seems to run to the ultimate scenario of the Commission taking over responsibility for the spending of Structural Funds in such a country, but that position would only be reached after years of negotiations and nobody wants to go in that direction. The idea is for us to be more preventive in our work on the issue. There has been a discussion about terms and it seems there will be an exchange of one term - "persistent equilibrium" - for another that has not yet been agreed that might do the trick, leading to a certain definition of macroeconomic conditionalities.

The monitoring of the youth guarantee will be done as closely as possible to the source and we are in discussions with member states in order that they put in place their own monitoring mechanisms on the basis of a generally accepted model. These negotiations are ongoing. There will be quite a challenge and there will be a limitation in the next two years for two reasons. The front-loading is to help as quickly as possible and there is also the idea that we are working for growth and the only way to have structural new jobs is to promote growth. The youth guarantee can help young people to get work experience or further training, but it will not create jobs.

It would be dramatic after two years if the growth rate did not pick up, as then we might return to the fact that young people would have profited from a youth guarantee for a number of months, that they would have received training or temporary work experience, before falling back to the army of the unemployed. That outcome cannot be excluded if there is not enough growth.

We are working to provide help in the short term through the youth guarantee and to create a healthy macroeconomic environment in the longer term. A sum of €6 billion has been established as an extra possibility. Member states can also use the European Social Fund that will be available until 2020 to add more money. It has been agreed by the European Council that eventually in the years to come if there are leftovers in other parts of the budget, the sum of €6 billion can be beefed up to €8 billion. That increase will depend on leftovers in others parts of the budget. At the same time we are working on short-term and longer term solutions.