The new EU initiative to promote the mobility of students and trainees and to improve young people overall employment opportunities, “Youth on the Move” will be launched this September.

The EU commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth will host a webstreamed debate on the 17th September. Androulla Vassiliou will answer questions from a live audience as well as from remote participants who choose to send in questions, either beforehand or in real time. Stay tuned to the Commissioner website for the detailed schedule. Take the chance and have your say!

At the end of 2007, the European Commission (EC) created a High-level Expert Forum on mobility to undertake a reflection and to make recommendations with a view to promoting the expansion of mobility between Member States for students and young people. This Forum included two experts from the culture sector which allowed to bring the arts perspective onto the discussion: Jean-François Michel (European Music Council) and Mary Ann DeVlieg (IETM-International Network for the Contemporary Performing Arts). Following up this Forum´s report, in 2009 the EC launched a Green Paper and opened up this discussion to the civil society. Finally, these efforts are turning into a concrete policy instrument determined to make Youth (on the) Move!

Included in the Europe 2020 strategy, this new initiative intends to encourage EU countries to work together to give young people in Europe better opportunities to make the best of their skills. The current economic crisis has put even more pressure on the need to improve access to work, especially to those new to labour markets. Mobility, or learning mobility as it is named within the education field, is considered an essential tool to improve formal and informal competences and therefore employability. In fact, mobility is a key instrument for the EU project in general. Promoting mobility is crucial to the EU economically but also politically, from the development of the internal market to the promotion of EU engagement and sense of citizenship.

Despite the huge popularity of the Erasmus programme, mobility still constitutes an exception and not a rule for most youngsters. In fact, grants are still few and too low to permit those with economic difficulties to take their chance. In parallel, difficulties with recognition of qualifications, language barriers, lack of information and motivation as well as other cultural and administrative hindrances remain.

The EU has set as a goal that in 2020 at least 20% of those graduating in the European Higher Education Area should have had a study or training period abroad. The EU recognises that many of the efforts required imply not only EU action, but coordinated action taken at national, regional and institutional levels, as well as the active involvement of civil society, business and other stakeholders. In addition, measures to increase mobility ought to aim in particular at including those already struggling with specific difficulties, e.g. economically or socially disadvantaged groups, people with special needs, and underprivileged migrant populations.  

Youth on the Move is precisely an EU attempt in this direction. Let’s keep an eye on the EU Youth portal to find out what this proposal is about!

Suggestions for those interested in learning mobility:

-Read the recently published Interarts report to the EC “Access of Young People to Culture” that includes mobility and cooperation as a good practice in promoting young people access to culture.

-Participate and/or watch out for the final report of the Artists Moving and Learning project to be released this next October, 6-7 in Brussels in a dedicated conference.