EESC opinion: Promoting the learning mobility of young people

Key points

The EESC fully supports the Commission's efforts towards promoting the learning mobility of young people;

the learning mobility targets can only be met if there is full and widespread cooperation and efforts are made at all levels;

the link between learning mobility and employability needs to be further explained and emphasised;

promoting the mobility of young Europeans is important in maintaining Europe's competitiveness: serious efforts should simultaneously be directed towards avoiding a brain drain from Europe and at making Europe an attractive location both for scientists of European origin and those from outside Europe;

in order to improve funding, the EU should mobilise all existing mechanisms and partners and mainstream mobility in all relevant policies;

all mobility programmes should adhere to the European Quality Charter for Mobility and that the current mobility programmes are reformed to simplify procedures;

the commitment to mobility should be expressed in an ambitious Benchmark on mobility in the new strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training;

a single European web portal where all information about pan-European learning mobility programmes could be readily found should be established;

to promote learning mobility, language teaching should become a priority in the curricula of education and training institutions at all levels.