Governments across Europe dream of finding a magic solution to rising unemployment. But, in the hardest-hit parts of the EU, joblessness rates continue to creep up and the rhetoric does little to shorten the dole queue. Now, in a struggling corner of Italy, one mayor thinks he has found an answer to his town’s chronic lack of work – although, rather than a solution, it appears to some to be more of an admission of defeat. Valter Piscedda, the centre- left mayor of Elmas, a small town near Sardinia’s capital, Cagliari, wants to pay residents to leave. The council will pay for ten unemployed locals to take intensive English lessons, board a cheap flight and look for jobs elsewhere in Europe. “This is, above all, an idea born of common sense and experience,” he told the Guardian. “Over the past year and a half – especially in the past few months – I have been receiving young people, almost every day, who are despairing about their search for work. Some are looking here and ask for a hand in finding it here. Others have tried everything and are so discouraged that they no longer want to stay and wait. And they want to go and gain work experience abroad; life experience, too. “So, my reasoning was this: put everything in place that the council administration can put in place so that those who want to gain experience abroad are able to,” he said. As the