This paper investigates the statistical features and the macroeconomic determinants of youth unemployment in a number of European countries. First, it explores its short and long memory properties by estimating both autoregressive and fractional integration. This analysis sheds light on the degree of persistence of the series, and on whether policy actions are required for highly persistent series. Second, it investigates the main determinants of youth unemployment in Europe by estimating fractional cointegration models. The evidence suggests that this series is highly persistent in all the countries examined, and that in some of them there is a significant long-run equilibrium relationship linking it to macroeconomic variables such as GDP and inflation.