do-me/EUR-LEX huggingface dataset:
WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1378/99 by Barbara WEILER European Voluntary Service
Date: 1999-09-01
Institutions: European Parliament, WEILER
Subjects: EU policy, European defence policy, European social policy, organisation of professions, social-security harmonisation, tax harmonisation, voluntary military service

C 27 E/32

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

29.1.2000

(2000/C 27 E/035)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-1378/99

by Barbara Weiler (PSE) to the Commission

(1 September 1999)

Subject: European Voluntary Service

The members of the European Voluntary Service suffer major disadvantages in some cases compared to
other, national voluntary services. They have, for example, no uniform legal status and forfeit their
entitlements to unemployment and child benefit.

Does the Commission intend to propose common rules so that the legal situation of European

1.
volunteers may be improved?

2.
How does the Commission rate the chances of the Member States defining a common status for the
European Voluntary Service that includes coordination of social protection and tax arrangements for the
volunteers?

How long is it likely to be before the Member States agree on a common status for European

3.
volunteers?

Answer given by Mrs Reding on behalf of the Commission

(5 October 1999)

The Commission attaches great importance to the elimination of all legal and administrative barriers to
access to the European Voluntary Service Programme and to transnational mobility for young European
volunteers and recognition of the particular nature of their situation.

However, the (cid:145)European voluntary service for young people(cid:146) programme is based on Article 149 (ex-Article
126) of the EC treaty pursuant to which the Community must encourage cooperation between Member
States while fully respecting their responsibility in this area, and this rules out harmonisation of the
existing system.

The Community action has already had an impact on existing legislation in certain Member States but the
Commission considers that there is still room for improvement. This is why it plans, in the context of
following up the Green Paper (cid:145)Education, training, research: the obstacles to transnational mobility(cid:146) (1), to
propose a recommendation concerning notably young volunteers with a view to recognising the particular
nature of transnational voluntary activities and to eliminating the legal and administrative barriers and the
legal uncertainty associated with the mobility of young volunteers.

As regards social protection for volunteer development workers, who are not part of the European
Voluntary Service Programme (2), the Council, acting on a proposal
from the Commission, adopted
Recommendation 85/308/EC (3) on 13 June 1985. On 31 March 1992 the Commission presented an
initial report on the application of this recommendation (4) and, very recently, on 2 July 1999, a new
report (5).

(1) COM(96) 462 final.
(2) COM(98) 201 final.
(3) COM(85) 260 final.
(4)
(5) COM(99) 326 final.

SEC(92) 591 final.