Another empty letter by Barroso and Van Rompuy

During the warm summer weeks the EU bureaucracy has been busy putting together a joint letter to the 28 EU Heads of State and Government by the EU presidents Barroso and Van Rompuy about the "key issues coming up for discussion at the G20 summit in Saint Petersburg on 5-6 September", hosted by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. 

The Barroso-Van Rompuy letter is full of the usual phrases lauding the various (empty) "plans", "roadmaps" and "compacts", which the EU is so good at producing: 

"Saint Petersburg Action Plan", Compact for Growth and Jobs, Youth Employment Initiative

Single Resolution Mechanism, EMU roadmap, "Youth Guarantee". "Investment Plan" 

No doubt all those beautiful plans and roadmaps will once again be discussed in St. Petersburg, but one thing is clear; they will not in any way alter this reality:

Unemployment across the 17 European Union countries that use the euro hit another all-time high in May, official data showed Monday.

Across the eurozone, there were 19.22 million people unemployed, 67,000 higher than the previous month — a closer look at the figures show that Italy was largely behind the increase.

Even though the monthly rises outside of Italy were relatively modest, analysts still expect unemployment in the eurozone to continue to rise as the region remains stuck in recession that started in late 2011.