Explanatory Memorandum to COM(1999)708 - Mobility within the EC for students, persons undergoing training, young volunteers, teachers and trainers - Main contents
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| dossier | COM(1999)708 - Mobility within the EC for students, persons undergoing training, young volunteers, teachers and trainers. |
|---|---|
| source | COM(1999)708  |
| date | 21-01-2000 |
1. Freedom of movement for people is one of the fundamental principles of the EC Treaty. This freedom of course concerns employees and self-employed workers, which in principle includes teachers and trainers. But it does not only concern workers. People who would like to start or continue studies or training, or undertake voluntary work, not necessarily for professional purposes, should also be able to benefit from this freedom when they choose to go to another EU country, whether this is in the context of a Community programme or not.
2. Freedom of movement includes both the right to enter and reside in a Member State. A Community national, who exercises this right, benefits from the guarantee of Article 12 of the EC Treaty, which provides for a general obligation of non-discrimination by the Member States.
3. The mobility of students, persons undergoing training, young volunteers, teachers and trainers has long been a subject of interest to European citizens. In the context of completing the internal market and therefore an area without frontiers, mobility for these categories of people becomes an increasingly important dimension of the assertion of European citizenship, as well as an instrument of intercultural and social integration. It was in the second half of the 1980s that Community action in this field took off, with the adoption of Community programmes such as the Comett programme for training (1986), the Erasmus education programme (1987) and the Youth for Europe programme (1988). Since then, other programmes have been added including European Voluntary Service, and these programmes have enabled thousands of Europeans to live in another country of the Community in order to fulfil the task they have set themselves. In addition to mobility in the context of Community programmes, there is also the spontaneous mobility of individual citizens.
4. The European Parliament has stressed in several Resolutions the importance of working towards fully achieving freedom of movement for people within the European area. It has also advocated the abolition of obstacles to mobility so that people, who so wish, can enjoy such mobility within the Community without any restrictions.
5. The Council of Ministers has also pronounced itself in favour of achieving an open area in which obstacles to mobility must be eliminated. Thus, in the field of education, the Council first affirmed in its Resolution of 24 May 1988 i and in its conclusions of 27 November 1992 i, that the mobility of students and teachers plays a key role in developing the European dimension in higher education. Then in its conclusions of 11 June 1993 i, the Council urged Member States to make a determined effort to eliminate obstacles to mobility in higher education. The same argument was made for the field of training. Thus the Council Resolution of 3 December 1992 on the transparency of professional qualifications, and that of 15 July 1996 on the transparency of vocational training certificates, invited the Commission and the Member States to take steps to improve mutual understanding of the diverse qualifications systems of Member States and of the qualifications themselves, and thus facilitate mobility. A 'European Forum on the transparency of professional qualifications' was set up by the Commission and Cedefop to follow up these Resolutions with concrete proposals. Moreover, the first recital of the Decision of 21 December 1998 i, with which the Council introduced the 'Europass-Training' system, the aim of which is to ensure better recognition of training acquired abroad, stresses that the mobility of persons undergoing training is critical to the implementation of a vocational training policy. Finally, with regard to young volunteers, the Council and Ministers for Youth, in their conclusions of 30 November 1994 i, recognised the growing interest in and development of voluntary service activities at European level and emphasised the necessity to remove obstacles to mobility for young volunteers.
6. The Commission's Agenda 2000 which gives priority to mobility for the categories of people covered by this Recommendation, as well as the Communication 'Towards a Europe of knowledge', have further stressed this message.
7. Nevertheless, as the Commission Green Paper of October 1996 'Education, training, research: the obstacles to transnational mobility' i and the 'Report of the high-level group on freedom of movement for people' chaired by Mrs Simone Veil, both stress, the mobility of students, persons undergoing training and young volunteers, and to a lesser extent, of teachers and trainers, continues to come up against significant obstacles despite the acquis communautaire. These obstacles must be eliminated.
8. The Commission Green Paper and the Report of the high-level group propose lines of action to eliminate the obstacles identified. The debates which followed these two reports, confirmed the need for Community intervention in order to encourage Member States to take the necessary steps to progressively remove existing difficulties, so that Community citizens can be given a set of rights offering a platform for real mobility. The Amsterdam European Council adopted a Single Market Action Plan with the aim of improving the implementation of this market. The Plan identified four strategic objectives, including the implementation of a Single Market for the benefit of all citizens, and covering measures relating to the right of residence and mobility within the Union, as well as a mechanism for maintaining a permanent dialogue with citizens. These considerations demonstrate the need for Community action which must be accompanied by action in the Member States. This Recommendation therefore conforms to the principle of subsidiarity which, as defined in the protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality (in particular Article 5), justifies Community action on issues such as mobility which have a transnational aspect.
9. The objectives of the Recommendation are as follows:
- to get Member States to abolish the considerable obstacles which still exist, despite the acquis communautaire, in terms of freedom of movement for students, persons undergoing training, young volunteers, teachers and trainers;
- to get Member States to adopt measures so that third country nationals, who are legally and permanently resident in the Community, benefit from the provisions of the acquis communautaire relating to freedom of movement and equality of treatment and from the provisions of the Recommendation; to get Member States to treat third country nationals in the same way as Community nationals when they are undertaking studies, a period of training, voluntary work, or providing teaching or training, within the framework of a Community programme;
- to call on Member States to introduce strategies to incorporate the aspect of transnational mobility into their national policies which apply to the categories of people covered by this Recommendation, in order to promote transnational mobility;
- to contribute to the dissemination of good practice, as developed in particular in the context of the Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci and European Voluntary Service Community programmes.
10. In order to achieve these objectives, Member States are invited in particular: to ensure that people who move within the Community are not penalised, either during or after their stay, by their rights - particularly their social security rights - being diminished; to recognise experience acquired in the host Member State at its true value; to run information campaigns to promote mobility by explaining the conditions which this is subject to.
11. A recommendation is the best instrument for working towards the elimination of the obstacles to mobility which remain in areas as diverse as the recognition of experience, the right of residence, social security and taxation. It is hardly necessary to repeat that the different categories of people concerned each have individual situations which mean that they cannot be treated in the same way. Even within these categories, distinctions often have to be made between the situations in the Member States in view of the specificity of each national system. Moreover the obstacles encountered in one Member State are not necessarily those encountered in another Member State. In this context, a recommendation is the most appropriate instrument for these objectives, because it avoids imposing a common mould, and instead attempts to encourage each Member State to improve their own systems, in conformity with the principle of subsidiarity mentioned above. A recommendation also fully respects the principle of proportionality because it gives Member States greater leeway than a binding instrument would i.
12. This Recommendation is based on Articles 149 and 150 of the EC Treaty. These Articles provide for Community action, in cooperation with the Member Sates, in the fields of education, training and youth. These measures refer specifically to the need to promote mobility for the categories of people covered by this Recommendation.