Last week, the minister presented priorities of the Lithuanian EU presidency in the youth-related area during a meeting of the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council and said that there are ways in the area to motivate young people to work.
"When we talk about work with young people, so one of the aspects might be the promotion of sociability and citizenship, and, with no doubt, that motivates integrating into the labor market. It is definitely related," the minister told BNS after returning from Brussels.
The minister also said at the meeting that where measures of other political areas are not effective, work with young people might help them become active in terms of accessibility and impact.
According to Pabedinskienė, the issue of integration of young people will be one of priorities of the Lithuanian presidency of the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council.
"Young people who don't study or work are among our key priorities. The issue is in fact widely talked about in Europe. So we just have this priority in the area of youth policies," the minister told BNS.
In her words, last week's meeting focused on the need of qualitative work with young people. Lithuania has something to show other countries, and good practices will be introduced at a conference in Vilnius in September.
"For example, we, Lithuania, have an example - a youth mobility program which has been allocated 4 million litas (EUR 1,16 million) for two years. It will be one of promotion measures for young people who neither work nor are integrated into civic or public life and labor processes in any other way," Pabedinskienė said.
Lithuania will take over the rotating EU presidency on July 1.
