The European Parliament says “YES” to Youth!

“YES Europe” will be the brand new programme as approved on Tuesday, the 27th of November 2012 by the Culture and Education Committee (CULT) of the European Parliament. The new programme proposal, presented by the Chair Ms Doris Pack (already patron of the Higher Education Days project), has been approved with a great majority and will be presented to the plenary for discussion and approval next year.

Rejected the branding “Erasmus for All,” YES Europe will merge all existing programmes for the Youth, Education and training, and Sport (that is how the acronym YES has been created), safeguarding the brand names already existing in the field of education (Erasmus, Comenius, Grundtvig and Leonardo da Vinci) and including new separate chapters for youth and sport.

YES includes the scheme of a loan guarantee for Master students that wish to study abroad, complementing (“and not replacing,” as Doris Pack said) the current local and international funding opportunities, with the prevision of favourable terms for students to be agreed.

In line with the advocacy AEGEE-Europe and other European organisations carried on, the new programme has a separate chapter for youth, that keeps the brand name Youth in Action and foresees a separate budget line for funding. Moreover, the budget increase proposed by the European Commission of 18 billion Euro has been kept, but with the provision of minimum guaranteed thresholds for separate chapters, being 83.4% for education and training, 8% for youth and 1.8% for sport.

Doris Pack appealed to: “all those authority who repeatedly stress the importance of education in their speeches to provide an adequate budget,” as the negotiation on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 depends exclusively on the provision of Member States.

Finally, it is a good success of the advocacy process of AEGEE-Europe, which started before the EBM in Izmir 2012 and was lead by the Comité Directeur with the great help of the Advocacy team.

So, while there is satisfaction for “the fact that the YES Europe proposal with s a lot more inclusive title than Erasmus For All is actually ensuring a separate budget line for the youth, stressing therefore the importance of youth funded activities, and is finally mentioning the operational grants, which are needed to ensure the viability of the work of the European youth organisations,” as Lucille Rieux, Secretary General and together with Luis Alvarado a contact person in the Comité Directeur for the advocacy team, commented on behalf of the whole Comité Directeur, the advocacy path has to continue now: “for a better inclusion of the youth in the management of the programme,” as Lucille continued, and of course for an “adequate budget,” as Doris Pack stated.

Written by Alfredo Sellitti, AEGEE-Salerno