European Solidarity Corps (2018)

In its opinion, the EESC welcomes the commitment to the renewed European Solidarity Corps (ESC) with an increased budget and target for participation. It also appreciates the merging with the EU Aid Volunteers. The Committee believes that in the future, the EU needs to develop two independent support programmes, one for youth and one for volunteering.

The EESC makes a series of concrete recommendations, such as: 1) the employment strand of the ECS needs to be subject to strict regulation and regular review; 2) there should be no age restriction on the ESC as it should be a support for volunteering; 3) the ESC should be restricted to the not for profit sector; 4)the main civil society platforms in the field (the European Youth Forum and the European Volunteering Centre) should be centrally involved in the regulation and oversight of the ESC.

Key points

• The EESC welcomes the commitment to the renewed European Solidarity Corps (ESC) with an increased budget and target for participation. It appreciates the merging with the EU Aid Volunteers.
• The Committee considers that in the future, the EU needs to develop two independent support programmes, one for youth and one for volunteering, while accepting there will be some overlap.
• The EESC considers that the employment strand needs to be subject to strict regulation and regular review to ensure commitments made in relation to it are met and that the ESC should be restricted to the not for profit sector.
• Consistent with a lifelong learning approach, there should be no age restriction on the ESC.
• Sharing best practice on volunteering needs to be facilitated and prioritised and this should involve EU Member States so as to gather all relevant information and facilitate more policy development in this area.
• National Agencies should be provided with enhanced support to deal with the employment strand and labour market issues.
• The major documents on ensuring fair treatment of people on internships, traineeships and other measures outlined in this report should be utilised and reported on in the monitoring of the ESC.
• The main civil society platforms in the field (the European Youth Forum and the European Volunteering Centre) should be centrally involved in the regulation and oversight of the ESC.