P9_TA(2023)0410 – Implementation of the European Solidarity Corps programme 2021-2027 – European Parliament resolution of 21 November 2023 on the implementation of the European Solidarity Corps programme 2021-2027 (2023/2018(INI))
Date: 2023-11-21
Institutions: Committee on Culture and Education, Committee on Development, European Parliament
Subjects: EU programme, European Solidarity Corps, education policy, vocational training, voluntary organisation, voluntary work, young person, youth employment, youth policy








C_202404213EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2024/4213


24.7.2024






P9_TA(2023)0410

Implementation of the European Solidarity Corps programme 2021-2027


European Parliament resolution of 21 November 2023 on the implementation of the European Solidarity Corps programme 2021-2027 (2023/2018(INI))

(C/2024/4213)



The European Parliament,







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having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular to Articles 165(4), 166(4) and 214(5) thereof,










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having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,










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having regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by the EU in 2010,










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having regard to Regulation (EU) 2021/888 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2021 establishing the European Solidarity Corps Programme and repealing Regulations (EU) 2018/1475 and (EU) No 375/2014 (1),










—


having regard to Regulation (EU) 2021/817 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2021 establishing Erasmus+: the Union Programme for education and training, youth and sport and repealing Regulation (EU) No 1288/2013 (2) (‘Erasmus+’),










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having regard to the Implementation guidelines: Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps Inclusion and Diversity Strategy, published on 29 April 2021,










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having regard to the Council recommendation of 5 April 2022 on the mobility of young volunteers across the European Union (3),










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having regard to the resolution of the Council and of the representatives of the Member States meeting within the Council of 5 June 2019 establishing guidelines on the governance of the EU Youth Dialogue – European Union Youth Strategy 2019-2027 (4),










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having regard to the Commission communication of 11 December 2019 entitled ‘The European Green Deal’ (COM(2019)0640),










—


having regard to the Commission communication of 5 March 2020 entitled ‘A Union of Equality: Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025’ (COM(2020)0152),










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having regard to the Commission communication of 1 July 2020 entitled ‘European Skills Agenda for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience’ (COM(2020)0274),










—


having regard to the Commission communication of 18 September 2020 entitled ‘A Union of equality: EU anti-racism action plan 2020-2025’ (COM(2020)0565),










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having regard to the Commission communication of 30 September 2020 entitled ‘Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027 – Resetting education and training for the digital age’ (COM(2020)0624),










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having regard to the Commission communication of 30 September 2020 on achieving the European Education Area by 2025 (COM(2020)0625),










—


having regard to the Commission communication of 24 November 2020 entitled ‘Action plan on Integration and Inclusion 2021-2027’ (COM(2020)0758),










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having regard to the Commission communication of 3 December 2020 on the European democracy action plan (COM(2020)0790),










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having regard to the Commission communication of 4 March 2021 entitled ‘The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan’ (COM(2021)0102),










—


having regard to the Commission communication of 24 March 2021 entitled ‘EU strategy on the rights of the child’ (COM(2021)0142),










—


having regard to Decision (EU) 2021/2316 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 December 2021 on a European Year of Youth (2022) (5),










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having regard to Decision (EU) 2023/936 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 May 2023 on a European Year of Skills (6)
,











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having regard to its resolution of 15 September 2020 on effective measures to ‘green’ Erasmus+, Creative Europe and the European Solidarity Corps (7),










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having regard to its resolution of 10 February 2021 on the impact of COVID-19 on youth and on sport (8),










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having regard to its resolution of 8 March 2022 on the role of culture, education, media and sport in the fight against racism (9),










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having regard to its resolution of 6 April 2022 on the implementation of citizenship education actions (10),










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having regard to its resolution of 19 May 2022 on establishing the European Education Area by 2025 – micro-credentials, individual learning accounts and learning for a sustainable environment (11),










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having regard to its resolution of 23 June 2022 on the implementation of inclusion measures within Erasmus+ 2014-2020 (12),










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having regard to its resolution of 13 September 2022 on the impact of COVID-19 closures of educational, cultural, youth and sports activities on children and young people in the EU (13),










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having regard to its resolution of 24 November 2022 on the European Year of Youth 2022 legacy (14),










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having regard to Rule 54 of its Rules of Procedure, as well as Article 1(1)(e) of, and Annex 3 to, the decision of the Conference of Presidents of 12 December 2002 on the procedure for granting authorisation to draw up own-initiative reports,










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having regard to the opinion of the Committee on Development,










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having regard to the report of the Committee on Culture and Education (A9-0308/2023),










A.


whereas the European Solidarity Corps (ESC) is a self-standing programme designed to open up new opportunities for young people to undertake volunteering activities in solidarity-related areas, as well as to devise and develop solidarity projects;










B.


whereas solidarity activities should present European added value, benefit communities and foster participants’ personal, educational, social, civic and professional development; whereas volunteering, both within and beyond the EU, is an enriching experience in a non-formal and informal learning context, while promoting solidarity, European values and equal opportunities;










C.


whereas the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the mobility aspect of the programme and delayed several projects; whereas interest in the programme was not affected, which highlighted the programme’s potential and proved the importance of young people’s engagement on the ground in solidarity activities, including blended volunteering;










D.


whereas the ESC provided opportunities to refocus activities in order to support people fleeing Ukraine and introduced a special policy activity to contribute to relief and assistance for Ukrainian refugees;










E.


whereas quality and support measures are essential for providing high-quality volunteering activities; whereas these measures face many difficulties; whereas effective and efficient tools are crucial for the programme’s implementation;










F.


whereas the visibility of the programme is still relatively low, particularly among regional and local youth organisations; whereas the European Year of Youth in 2022 proved to be a unique opportunity to enhance the programme’s visibility; whereas it is therefore necessary to employ sufficient means to promote the programme more widely and create a recognisable brand;










G.


whereas youth work and the education of youth workers are not recognised in all Member States, which results in discrepancies in the ESC and in other youth programmes; whereas recognising youth work and the education of youth workers will ensure a minimum degree of harmonisation of young people’s realities across the EU and could have a positive impact on the quality of projects in the ESC programme;










H.


whereas the programme intends to provide opportunities for at least 185 755 young people by 2027, having so far awarded funding to almost 43 000 young people of the nearly 80 000 who submitted applications; whereas 85 % of ESC participants apply for long-term volunteering activities, compared to the initial estimate of 65 % for long-term volunteering and 35 % for short-term volunteering;










I.


whereas the ESC has great potential to develop a common European sense of belonging by providing learning opportunities for volunteers to become active citizens, thus contributing to building better societies, fostering cohesion, advancing peace and preventing violence;










J.


whereas one of the main policy priorities is including young people with fewer opportunities; whereas in 2021-2022, a total of 14 060 participants belonged to this category, of whom 8 622 were awarded places as individual volunteers and 5 438 were awarded places on volunteering teams; whereas inclusivity, including in rural areas, should remain a key priority for the programme and more efforts should be devoted to ensuring a geographical balance in the participation of people from disadvantaged backgrounds across the EU; whereas continuous efforts should be made to reach out to youth and provide them with the support they need; whereas, in some cases, the ambiguous use of the term ‘inclusion of people with fewer opportunities’ can create challenges and affect meaningful implementation;










K.


whereas the last publicly available ESC annual report refers to the 2018-2019 period; whereas the EU Youth Strategy affirms that evidence-based youth policy-making and knowledge building are essential and contribute to the wider public debate; whereas the dashboard created for the Youth Strategy and the datasets available on Eurostat are fragmented, non-comparable and not easily accessible; whereas age-disaggregated and gender-disaggregated data is key for fostering understanding of the needs of different groups of young people; whereas sensitive data about the participation of volunteers should be processed in full compliance with national and European legislative frameworks on privacy and the protection of personal data;










L.


whereas the European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps, the humanitarian strand of the ESC, offers young people opportunities to gain and develop skills while fostering innovation, resilience, solidarity and livelihoods across societies globally; whereas principled humanitarianism underpins humanitarian volunteering;










M.


whereas the implementation of the ESC humanitarian strand is still in an early stage, with the first deployments taking place in June 2023, which means it can only be partially assessed;










N.


whereas the high demand for the programme exceeds the financial resources allocated to it, which significantly affects the participation of young people and the number of projects awarded funding;










O.


whereas young migrants and refugees face structural barriers to participation in the programme, particularly because of their administrative status;










P.


whereas there is no fixed and structured process involving civil society organisations in the design and implementation of the programme;










Q.


whereas the importance of the programme’s objectives – namely contributing to social cohesion, fostering understanding among Europeans and preventing conflict through solidarity – has proven the value of the ESC programme as a self-standing programme that merits a larger budget to enable it to live up to its true potential; whereas the overall budget of EUR 1,033 billion for 2021-2027 has a flat-rate profile and cannot cope with the high demand, the rising costs of living, inflation rates and other challenges; whereas budget constraints may damage the quality and inclusivity of the projects and may make the programme less attractive;






1.   

Reminds the Commission, the Member States, the national agencies (NAs) and volunteering organisations to implement and develop the ESC programme in line with the measures and activities identified for it, while helping to simplify procedures and enhancing visibility;



2.   

Calls on the Commission and the NAs to strengthen the regular exchange of best practices, enhance common understanding of programme procedures, deepen cooperation and improve the promotion of the programme; stresses that all relevant stakeholders, including at local and regional levels, should be involved in regular consultation on matters falling within their competence; stresses the importance of ensuring that resources are available to a diverse range of organisations; recommends resuming the practice of regularly convening an advisory council of knowledgeable and experienced stakeholders, including youth organisations, coordinated by the ESC Resource Centre;



3.   

Urges the Commission, the Member States, the NAs and engaged organisations to raise awareness about the programme and its individual strands, to further build its brand and to reach out to more youth organisations and young people, particularly the most disadvantaged in society, including those with disabilities and with fewer opportunities; calls on the Commission to provide NAs with expertise and guidance to enable them to promote the programme; underlines that effective communication, targeted support measures, regular monitoring and reporting play an important role in this regard; highlights that increased communication and greater awareness about the programme must be complemented by an increased budget to cover new applicants and avoid a low success rate;



4.   

Calls on the NAs to develop and implement more tailored communication activities to reach out to young people, while ensuring that they are understandable and accessible, to utilise the potential of youth organisations, particularly those led by and addressing young people with fewer opportunities, and to increase the support they provide to applicants; stresses the importance of setting up an information campaign specifically targeting this audience to create more awareness and of designing compulsory training programmes appropriately;



5.   

Believes that the programme’s upcoming 10th anniversary in 2026 and the possibility of designating 2025 the European Year of Volunteers should further improve the visibility of volunteering and of opportunities for active youth engagement, as creating a Year of Volunteers is particularly important following the multiple crises that Europe has been through, during which volunteers and their work were immensely valuable;



6.   

Notes that solidarity projects attract less interest and are less visible, resulting in uneven budget distribution; calls on the Commission, the NAs and volunteering organisations to promote short-term activities;



7.   

Notes that the COVID-19 pandemic showed that the programme should be more resilient in anticipation of force majeure; notes that young people’s needs and social trends are changing; invites the Commission to explore new volunteering formats for the next programming period, such as part-time or blended volunteering, and to provide participants and organisations with a sufficient budget; emphasises that these formats may be used as a valuable complement to physical mobility in specific situations, but do not provide the same quality of experience and benefits and are not a substitute for meaningful interaction on the ground;



8.   

Believes that in-country activities are relevant for young people with fewer opportunities; calls on the Commission to lower the age limit and the mandatory minimum number of five participants per solidarity project for in-country activities in the next programming period, following the example of Erasmus+ youth participation activities;



9.   

Urges the Commission and the Member States to strengthen the European civic mobility or transnational volunteering capabilities of the ESC, thereby acting as a driving force for cooperation and recognition between national volunteering schemes or civic services that offer European mobility experiences;



10.   

Recognises that supporting organisations are crucial for preparing volunteers, but notes that their role remains unclear; calls on the Commission to recognise and strengthen the specific supporting role of participating organisations, providing them with financial incentives and making their involvement mandatory in volunteering actions;



11.   

Believes that supporting organisations should have the option of conducting preparatory seminars for their volunteers themselves, and that organisations should be able to choose whether their volunteers take part in seminars organised by themselves or by NAs; underlines the importance of proper training for volunteers who have committed to work with vulnerable people, particularly children; highlights the need to facilitate the administrative procedures, in particular for smaller organisations and organisations that have not yet dealt with European programmes; calls on the Commission to issue further detailed guidance and technical assistance for applicants, in order to avoid discouraging organisations from engaging with the programme;



12.   

Welcomes the programme’s inclusive objectives and the implementation guidelines for its inclusion and diversity strategy; urges the Commission and the Member States to implement the strategy with the utmost care and attention, in particular to support organisations in reaching out to more participants with fewer opportunities, and to monitor its implementation carefully; calls on the Commission and the NAs to strengthen their support to applicants and to develop mechanisms and tools to ensure the effective and meaningful inclusion of people with fewer opportunities, in particular by facilitating networking between organisations working with these groups and by offering training and language courses, insurance, administrative and post-activity support to participants;



13.   

Calls on the Commission to consider adopting a more flexible approach to individual volunteering, enabling participants to mix and match countries, areas of activity and experiences; notes the inadequacy of the current search and match tools on the platform, which do not allow it to use its potential sufficiently;



14.   

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to include specific initiatives for EU volunteers to contribute to the post-war rebuilding of Ukraine;



15.   

Urges the Commission to ensure that the digital tools and systems currently used to manage and implement the programme are working properly and to their full potential and invites it to tackle, without delay, the persistent serious issues with the ESC IT tools, which are a significant obstacle not only to the participation of smaller organisations and of young people with fewer opportunities, but also to the participation of all kinds of beneficiaries; calls on the Commission to simplify the process for the IT tools and make it accessible to all groups and more user-friendly, and to test IT tools on a sufficiently large scale before they are rolled out further; notes that Erasmus+ and other EU-funded programmes have encountered similar issues with IT tools;



16.   

Insists that volunteering within the ESC must include learning and training components; notes that a very limited number of actions have dealt directly with citizenship education; calls for volunteers’ knowledge of the European Union to be enhanced, including through a module on European citizenship, which should be taken as a training course before or in parallel to the solidarity experience, in order to reinforce the European added value of the programme; calls on the Commission to deepen the solidarity experience by encouraging visits by volunteers to sites of memory in the host country, particularly to sites of special significance for the history of the EU;



17.   

Urges the Commission to improve the quality and quantity of online linguistic support for participants, to integrate better sorting and filtering tools into the placement administration and support system, to simplify and shorten the application process for the new Quality Label, to set more frequent re-accreditation deadlines and to reduce the time and administrative burden involved in re-accreditation;



18.   

Recalls the importance of data collection and reporting in order to assess and communicate the impact of the programme and make available data on its implementation, while fully respecting the fundamental rights to privacy and the protection of personal data, including data on participants, disaggregated by relevant categories such as age group or gender, and the types of organisations engaging with the programme;



19.   

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to facilitate the expansion of mutual recognition of learning outcomes from volunteering activities, including soft and professional skills, by registering them in Europass, by encouraging higher and vocational education institutions to award credits for these activities, including under the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS credits) and the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET credits) and, where possible, by recording volunteering experiences as digital credentials or micro-credentials; calls for more cooperation with educational institutions in creating these synergies; reiterates that volunteering is not a substitute for traineeships or jobs and must not be equated with employment;



20.   

Underlines the need to support the transition of volunteers into the labour market; emphasises, in this context, the need to increase the resources for long-term support and capacity building for vulnerable volunteers;



21.   

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to increase the recognition of youth work, youth workers’ education, and non-formal education in order to harmonise youth workers’ realities across the EU;



22.   

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to introduce a special visa category for ESC participants from non-Schengen countries, as host organisations cannot assist them in acquiring visas;




European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps










23.


Emphasises the importance of volunteering in humanitarian aid operations in promoting European values, along with the fundamental humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, the ‘do no harm’ approach and based on the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid, which provides the framework for EU responses to humanitarian crises; recalls that, as defined in the Grand Bargain, EU volunteering programmes in humanitarian contexts must work in line with the localisation agenda;












24.


Welcomes the improvements in comparison with the EU Aid Volunteers initiative, particularly on simplified financial reporting and the duration of the projects available;












25.


Welcomes the high number of young people interested in the humanitarian aid strand, with over 42 000 expressions of interests received by May 2023;












26.


Calls on the Commission to maintain the importance of adequate training, security and protection of volunteers, which should be subject to regular information sharing and risk assessment, particularly in areas considered to be unstable;












27.


Is concerned about the lengthy volunteer selection procedure, in particular with regard to waiting times for mandatory in-person training, which could lead to candidates dropping out and losing interest; stresses that volunteers should be able to complete their mandatory training at the beginning of their deployment so that they can become operational faster; underlines, however, that the selection procedure must be carried out in full respect for the principles of non-discrimination and equality; stresses the need to ensure the efficient selection, training and deployment of volunteers in order to respond faster to local needs and improve support to local organisations; underlines that humanitarian operations require an adequate learning and training phase tailored to the local context, which must be in line with humanitarian aid principles and linked to projects in which volunteers will be involved to the benefit of both volunteers and hosting organisations; emphasises, in this context, the value of local staff and volunteers to ensure the continuity of the work in the organisations; insists that humanitarian volunteers should not replace or duplicate the work of national staff in host organisations or carry out roles that could be filled by local volunteers, but rather strengthen the work of national staff and local volunteers instead;












28.


Recognises the need to carefully and properly check the organisations taking part in the programme, both for the safety of participants and the provision of quality skills training; calls on the Commission to allow organisations which were holders of a label certificate under the EU Aid Volunteers initiative, and organisations which are signatories to a framework partnership agreement between NGOs and the Commission’s Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations to benefit from a simplified procedure for obtaining the Quality Label required by the new programme; takes note of the complexity of the Quality Label application process, in particular for the humanitarian strand and for organisations not familiar with EU funding programmes;












29.


Notes that around two thirds of the selected projects for 2023 are development-centred; calls for a more balanced humanitarian-centred approach for future selections; calls on the Commission to consider the possibility of revising the regulation to allow volunteering in safe zones of conflict-affected countries, subject to clear security and safety protocols, appropriate training, background checks or other measures with a view to ensuring volunteers’ safety and the fulfilment of the duty of care for volunteers during all stages of the volunteering activity; insists that the deployment of volunteers be focused on pre-disaster preparedness and post-disaster recovery settings, where the conditions are more favourable for access and impact without the risk of negatively affecting the support offered by regular humanitarian staff to the affected populations;






European Solidarity Corps programme budget










30.


Calls on the Commission and the Member States, given the unfulfilled demand for the ESC, the increasing requests for solidarity after recurrent crises and the cost-effectiveness of actions to foster peace and prevent conflict, to provide the ESC with an adequate budget that will be able to accommodate increasing interest in the programme, and to allow more flexibility in the budget’s allocation between the project strands so that the programme can address unexpected challenges, such as rising inflation and higher living costs; calls, in this regard, for the budget of the ESC to be at least doubled in the next multiannual financial framework (2028-2034);












31.


Calls on the Commission to address grant funding delays and suggests creating a centralised platform where grant holders can upload contract amendments and thus avoid delays in project implementation;












32.


Asks the Commission to assess options for a more integrated approach to youth activities across EU programmes; calls on the Commission to facilitate the creation of more synergies with other EU programmes, notably Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe, and to explore the development of synergies with the European Social Fund and with EU actions on disaster relief;












33.


Calls on the Commission to address other budgetary issues, such as discrepancies between NAs in handling applications, by establishing specific centralised grants, managed by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency, for individual volunteering and solidarity projects for European organisations and networks, by recommending a minimum amount to be paid by host organisations to their partner/supporting organisations, by removing or increasing the current funding cap for coordination costs, by adjusting flat rates and lump sums to take into account inflation, the country where the project is taking place and the social and economic context of potential applicants, and by securing regular funding for quality label holders for long-term financial planning purposes; believes that these measures will help organisations and NAs to provide more opportunities and fulfil the programme’s potential;
°
° °












34.


Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the national agencies and youth and volunteering organisations.






(1)  
            OJ L 202, 8.6.2021, p. 32.

(2)  
            OJ L 189, 28.5.2021, p. 1


(3)  
            OJ C 157, 11.4.2022, p. 1.

(4)  
            OJ C 189, 5.6.2019, p. 1.

(5)  
            OJ L 462, 28.12.2021, p. 1.

(6)  
            OJ L 125, 11.5.2023, p. 1.

(7)  
            OJ C 385, 22.9.2021, p. 2.

(8)  
            OJ C 465, 17.11.2021, p. 82.

(9)  
            OJ C 347, 9.9.2022, p. 15.

(10)  
            OJ C 434, 15.11.2022, p. 31.

(11)  
            OJ C 479, 16.12.2022, p. 65.

(12)  
            OJ C 32, 27.1.2023, p. 58.

(13)  
            OJ C 125, 5.4.2023, p. 44.

(14)  
            OJ C 167, 11.5.2023, p. 83.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/4213/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)