WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1378/99 by Barbara WEILER European Voluntary 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 European voluntary service for young peopleí 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 Education, training, research: the obstacles to transnational mobilityí (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