Exchanges involving young workers after the revolutionary changes of 1989

Recommendation 1191 (1992)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 1 October 1992 (12th Sitting) (see Doc. 6665, report of the Committee on Culture and Education, Rapporteur : Mrs Terborg). Text adopted by the Assembly on 1 October 1992 (12th Sitting).

Thesaurus

1. The Assembly wishes to further the policies for youth mobility as proposed by the 3rd Conference of European Ministers responsible for Youth in Lisbon in 1990.

2. It is alarmed at the negative prospects in terms of education, training and employment for young people throughout Europe.

3. It is concerned lest facilities for youth work in central and eastern Europe disappear without any equivalent replacement, and is particularly anxious as to the situation of young people in this area with regard to access to professional qualifications and employment.

4. It is convinced that young people need to become acquainted with the ‘‘European idea'' through first-hand personal experience.

5. The Assembly believes that the ‘‘new Europe'' of the years to come should not be a Europe of frontiers, divisions and mutual exclusion, but rather an open continent, offering and securing the right of mobility to every individual.

6. It welcomes the recommendation of the Vienna Conference on the movement of persons from Central and Eastern European countries (January 1991) to support youth exchanges and opportunities for training and employment for fixed periods.

7. The Assembly recommends that the Committee of Ministers :

7.1 encourage the reduction of administrative barriers for young people who have completed their vocational training according to the rules laid down by their home authorities and who seek to enrich their professional and general knowledge by a temporary work stay abroad ;

7.2 invite the European Committee on Migration (CDMG) in its work on temporary migration in Europe to make proposals designed to increase the opportunities for young people from central and eastern European countries to undertake training and employment for fixed periods in other European countries ;

7.3 encourage the development of national youth cards, where they already exist, into ‘‘youth service cards'', which may facilitate visa procedures, permit access to work and replace the financial deposits and supplementary insurance usually required by states in cases of temporary stays by young people ;

7.4 urge those governments which might envisage abolishing the Inter-Rail card system to devise alternative arrangements with their European partners that will ensure similar benefits for young people travelling ;

7.5 provide for the enlargement and international co-ordination of the ‘‘Young Journeyman Scheme'', initiated by the Standing Conference of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe, in order to achieve a viable exchange system for young workers throughout Europe ;

7.6 invite the Commission of the European Communities to create an exchange system for young qualified workers extending to the countries of central and eastern Europe on lines similar to the Tempus programme for academic exchanges ;

7.7 set up an international fund under the authority of the European Youth Foundation which could in a flexible, non-bureaucratic manner react to specific needs of young people in countries of central and eastern Europe and help in particular to provide advice on facilities and youth information systems in these countries ;

7.8 implement the recommendation of the Governing Board of the European Youth Centre and Foundation that has been presented to the Committee of Ministers on the enlargement of facilities for youth worker training in central and eastern Europe ;

7.9 hold a conference involving representatives of youth exchange services, and similar establishments and institutions operating throughout Europe (Franco-German Youth Office, European Youth Foundation, certain agencies of the European Community, etc.) in order to provide a better co-ordination of services and avoid overlapping and useless competition ;

7.10 organise a European conference of youth research institutes which might become the basis for a Europe-wide network of information on youth research ;

7.11 draw the attention of the ministers responsible for youth, both of Council of Europe member states and of the European Community, to the existence of youth facilities in central and eastern Europe and to the risk of their imminent disappearance, calling on them to take appropriate steps for the maintenance of these facilities within a pan-European network of youth co-operation.