A communication from the European Commission on the new funding programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sport has been released: http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/index_en.htm
The proposal from the Commission does not envisage a separate youth programme focused on the promotion of participation and non-formal education as it has been in the past decades, but a sector- Erasmus Youth Participation- which addresses these aspects inside the broader programme, where formal education is predominant. Only one National Agency will manage all the programmes in each EU country.
An increased budget – 7% of the total budget (19 billion Euros) - will go to the programme for youth. This adds up to 1 billion euros, as compared to the budget of 885 million euros for the current programme, Youth in Action. With three key areas of action - learning mobility of individuals, cooperation for innovation and good practices, support for the policy reform - the structure of the programme which so far always included several different actions, has been simplified. There’s a pan-European approach, with the programme opening to candidate countries and partners from other non-EU countries (especially neighbouring countries).
But there’s a general feeling that there’s no strong link to the Lisbon Treaty article 165(2) which sets the basis for the EU to support youth exchanges and participation of young people. The proposal from the Commission is based on the needs of the labour market, and the aspect of active European citizenship and participation is not strongly addressed. Key concepts such as the role of youth organisations, youth work, volunteering and non-formal education don’t get the expected attention - only non-formal learning is mentioned. The fact that there is no mention of a direct financial support to European youth organisations, who have always been the ones implementing the programme, worries EFIL.
Under the sector “Erasmus Schools”, there’s no mention of the Comenius Individual Pupil’s Mobility programme. In the report accompanying the communication it is stated that individual pupil mobility will be mainstreamed and probably financed, together with class exchanges, in the frame of specific projects under the action ‘cooperation for innovation and good practices’, sub-action ‘strategic partnerships’.
Great opportunities could come up for EFIL and its member organisations by the sub-action ‘strategic partnerships’ since cooperation between schools and youth organisations will be supported.
The proposal of the European Commission is on the table and important decisions will be taken during 2012 in the co-decision process. It is now up to the European Parliament and the Member States to decide if and how they will re-shape the proposal, including allocation of budget. One of the remaining questions is which budget will be allocated to each action and sub-action and what will be the implementation rules of the programme. These are expected to be developed in 2012-2013 and stakeholders will hopefully be consulted.
