The European Commission has launched a public consultation to review the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) for the period 2017-2022. The EQF is a standard reference framework for lifelong learning that acts as a translation tool to better comprehend and compare national qualifications.

The EQF for Lifelong Learning

The European Qualifications Framework is divided into eight levels, which are represented as learning outcomes with increasing degrees of competency. Countries connect their national qualification systems to the EQF levels, making it easier to comprehend what a qualification achieved in another country represents. 

This public consultation will help to evaluate the EQF by learning: 

• how the EQF has been utilised;
• what its advantages are;
• how it might be improved;

Workers, learners, employers, and stakeholders from education and training, employment, and civil society can participate in the public consultation. The Commission encourages everyone to give their thoughts and participate in the review, regardless of whether they had previously heard about the EQF or not.

The Commission requires everyone’s assistance in understanding how to promote qualification transparency in Europe. If you want to have your say, please complete the questionnaire by March 22, 2023. Your contributions will significantly assist to strengthen the EQF and promote qualification transparency across Europe.

Read also

The European Year of Skills 2023: Empowering Youth with Soft Skills Development

European Commission Launches Public Consultation on Europass

L'articolo Public Consultation on European Qualifications Framework proviene da Youth Networks.

The European Year of Youth

The EU has declared 2022 the Year of Youth, saying it is in recognition of the sacrifices the younger generation made during the pandemic.

As part of the Year of Youth, activities, conferences and initiatives for young people are planned across all EU countries. There will be a special focus on young people with fewer opportunities.

There will also be increased efforts to include youth priorities in relevant EU policy areas and in the EU’s decision-making process.

The ALMA Programme

The flagship initiative of the Year of Youth is the ALMA programme which offers young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who don’t have a job the chance of work experience in other member states.

ALMA will offer participants:

• a supervised stay abroad for a period of 2 to 6 months in another EU Member State
• a comprehensive project cycle implying coaching and counselling at every step

The objective is to foster their inclusion within their home country by improving their skills, knowledge and experience and give them an opportunity to create new connections across Europe. The ultimate aim is their social inclusion and that they find their place in the job market.

L'articolo ALMA | Work Abroad Initiative Under the European Year of Youth 2022 proviene da Youth Networks.

The new EACEA website has gone live early at the beginning of February 2021.

EACEA 2021-2027

EACEA’s new generation of funding programmes for the period 2021-2027 will be:

• Erasmus+
• Creative Europe
• the European Solidary Corps
• the Citizenship, Equality, Rights and Values programme (CERV).

The last one replacing what has been known as Europe for Citizens.

New EACEA Website Live

The new website contains:

• information on our programmes for the period 2021-2027; 
• information on our activities and legal background; 
• beneficiaries spaces relating to ongoing projects from 2014-2020; 
• general information about our previous programmes;
• and plenty of other useful information for anyone interested in EACEA.

To make it easier to find funding opportunities, calls for proposals are no longer being available on the EACEA website. From now on, all future calls will be on the European Commission’s Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal (F&TP). Also note that currently no calls are available, but we hope to see funding opportunities soon, as we have already mentioned in previous articles.

Of important notice to point out that no information from the previous website has been lost. In fact, you can still access the previous EACEA website in these archives.

You can find the new EACEA website here.

Reas also

BREAKING NEWS: The First 2021-27 Erasmus+ Deadline Expected on May 2021

L'articolo The New EACEA Website Is Live proviene da Youth Networks.

The seminar represents an opportunity to meet other like-minded actors of the same field, to increase networking, and to exchange knowledge and good practices. Your contribution is an added value to a meeting that marks the conclusion of the EU-Turkish project “Speaking the Same Language”. The project, carried out by ANSIAD (Antalya Industrialists and Business People Association), Associazione di promozione sociale Joint and No Borders, is part of the European-Turkish cooperation among Civil Society Organisations and has been funded with EU funds. The aims of the project are:

• strengthening entrepreneurship and establish formal cooperation among cross-sectorial stakeholders;
• enabling the Exchange of knowledge and good practices among CSOs to support career development and entrepreneurial skills of young people;
• enabling intercultural learning experience among Turkish and European stakeholders;
• supporting personal and professional skills for young people to increase their employability.

The seminar sees the participation of 50 stakeholders from Europe and Turkey. The aim is to discuss how Civil Society Organisations from Turkey and Europe can cooperate more effectively in entrepreneurial activities, what challenges they may face while enabling new collaborations in this field and creating future partnerships and common projects.

The Seminar is held online on December 16-17th 2020 and the schedule is as follows:

1st day (December 16th 2020)

11-11.30 am: opening speeches and presentation of the project
Speaker: Akın Akay AKINCI, ANSIAD Chairman of The Board
11.30-11.50 am: the role of civil society in the entrepreneurial ecosystem – overview
Speakers:
– Assoc. Prof. Nuray ATSAN, Akdeniz University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences
– Nikolaus MEYER-LANDRUT, Head of EU Delegation to Turkey: Why EU gives importance to civil society dialogue between EU-TR?
– Mr Sezai HAZIR, Habitat Association Founder & President: How does CSOs contribute to the entrepreneurship eco-system in Turkey?
– Mr Orhan TURAN, President of TURKONFED: “Importance of EU-Turkey Dialogue from the Perspective of Business World CSOs”
– Mr İsmail HAZNEDAR, 2015 President of JCI Global: Importance of CSOs’ Support to Youth Entrepreneurship
– Mr Tommaso PESCETTO COSENTINO, General Manager of Joint Association: Importance of International Collaboration & Networks in Supporting Youth Entrepreneurship.

11.50-12 am: break
12-1.30 pm: the role of civil society in entrepreneurship ecosystem
1.30-2 pm: break
2-3 pm: small groups workshops: developing suggestions by stakeholders from civil society and other sectors
3.30 pm: closure

2nd day (December 17th 2020)

11-12 am: networking event – part 1
12-12.15 pm: break
12.15-1.15 pm: networking event – part 2
1.15-1.45 pm: general evaluation
1.45 pm: closure

The entire seminar is in English with simultaneous translation when needed. To participate, it is necessary to fill out the form.

Read also:

Introduction Day of “Step Into Solidarity” – Online Conference

L'articolo International Seminar on “The role of Civil Society in Entrepreneurship Ecosystem” proviene da Youth Networks.

Importantly, the framework includes the budget aimed at the Erasmus+ program.

The comprehensive financial package has an amount of €1 824.3 billion. It combines the next multiannual financial framework – €1 074.3 billion – and a €750 billion temporary recovery instrument, Next Generation EU.

Finally, the political package agreed with the Parliament includes:

• a targeted reinforcement of EU programmes, including Horizon Europe, EU4Health and Erasmus+, by €15 billion through additional means (€12.5 billion) and reallocations (€2.5 billion) in the course of the next financial period, while respecting the expenditure ceilings set out in the European Council conclusions of 17-21 July;
• more flexibility to allow the EU to respond to unforeseen needs;
• greater involvement of the budgetary authority in the oversight of revenue under Next Generation EU;
• higher ambition on biodiversity and strengthened monitoring of biodiversity, climate and gender related spending;
• an indicative roadmap towards the introduction of new own resources.

At this moment, the deal will be submitted to the member states for endorsement.

L'articolo Next Multiannual Financial Framework: the EU’s Long-Term Budget proviene da Youth Networks.

The proposal of European Commission

Last week MEPs voted for a set of contingency measures meant to safeguard the teachers, students and any other E+ participant currently abroad. Those were set out in the proposal that the European Commission put forward on 30 January 2019, available here.

Such proposal was issued by EU Parliament and EU Council, in order to prevent the risk that, due to the Brexit:

The current EU-27 and UK Erasmus+ participants would have to interrupt their learning mobility activities. Many students would lose their academic credits and could be obliged to repeat their academic semester or year. This would be a very disruptive impact for students themselves as well as for their sending and hosting institutions.

What will be the fate of the Erasmus+ Programme beneficiaries now?

With the time running up, the final vote of the EU Council secured the ongoing mobilities – and the ones due to start within 30 March, the “date of withdrawal”. Students, learners and people involved in any kind of E+ funded activity will continue to get European funds without any other prejudice. A big relief, considering the uncertainity of the situation.

This applies to beneficiaries of funding awarded before the date of withdrawal. And after that? Many British young people are seriously worried, and not without reason. In case of a no-deal Brexit, infact, the beneficiaries that have not started their mobility yet are still outstanding. As the Guardian reported, they can’t be sure about whether or not they will be able to count non only on scholarships (if Erasmus+ students or learners) or other types of financial support (for volunteering), but also on health insurance – the truth is that, as for now, UK citizens can’t even be sure if their driving licences will still be valid in EU-27, after Brexit.

What if a a deal will not be reached?

Actually, the funding for mobilities starting within 30 March were already provided for in the general EU budget. The issue at stake is rather that the Brexit will happen while the seven-year-period 2014/2020 of Erasmus+ Programme is still ongoing: the challenge, in a no-deal scenario, is to secure the mobilities until 2020.

The base of the proposal is the EU Regulation No 1288/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, that governs the Erasmus+ programme for the above-mentioned period. Basically, the contigency measures adopted these last days fall under the obligations undertaken by the UK according to the general EU budget.

As for the rest, a technical note released by the UK government just states that:

There are a range of options for the UK’s continued participation in Erasmus+ and ESC, including programme country status, partner country status or another arrangement ². Partner country access to Erasmus+ varies between different regional groups ³.

Some solutions to continue to take part in the Erasmus+ Programme after 2020 are currently under consideration. They can be either through an arrangement between the UK and the EU, so to make the UK partner country of the EU-27, or with an implementation of a series of bilateral agreements between the UK and the member states.

L'articolo Erasmus+ and Brexit: what is it going to happen after 29 March? proviene da Youth Networks.

Did you know? Few days ago, on January 28^th, it was the World Data Protection Day. Launched in 2006, it is an important day for the Eu. It wants, in fact, to celebrate the policies on the topics of data protection and privacy, expecially those of  last years.

“We are proud to have the strongest and most modern data protection rules in the world, which are becoming a global standard”.

So, in a joint statement from the European Commission, the First Vice-President Timmermans, Vice-President Ansip, Commissioners Jourová and Gabriel.

“The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica case and recent data breaches have shown that we are doing the right thing. What is at stake is not only the protection of our privacy, but also the protection of our democracies and ensuring the sustainability of our data-driven economies”. They continued.

Just last May 25^th, 2018, in fact, General Data Protection Regulation entered into application. A point on which, the European Commission puts a lot of emphasis: why?

The challenge of privacy

Nowadays, our lives are, for a great deal, online. This can be a problem for our privacy, since we leave a big amount of personal data, ignoring the way they will be used. It can be challenging, also because it is a new problem and often law is not ready to face it.

In 2012 a new regulation, updating the the 1995 Data Protection Directive, was proposed. The 1995 Directive, in fact, was unable to face the new challenges, coming from the internet in particular. In 2016, both the European Parliament and Council adopted the new regulation. Finally on May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation was implemented.

We should not forget that 2018 was also the year of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica case, violently showing the need of new rules to protect personal data.

GDPR: what’s new?

Very shortly: the General Data Protection Regulation aims to “harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, to protect and empower all EU citizens’ data privacy and to reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy”. In particular it refers to companies, public and private bodies in the EU, but even to non-EU companies using personal data of EU citizens. In the case of non-EU companies, they must appoint an EU representative.

Basically, when it comes to personal data: terms and conditions must be in an understandable language; retracting consent must be as easy as giving consent; and when you have given consent previously for one purpose, you must give it again if the company wants to use the data for a new purpose.

Even the definition of personal data was updated, in order to face the new situation.

The current definition, indeed, is “any information relating to an individual, whether it relates to his or her private, professional or public life. It can be anything from a name, a home address, a photo, an email address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, or a computer’s IP address”.

Impact

The Regulation, that as such does not need to be approved by national Parliaments, had a big impact on companies. Despite the almost 2 years given for complying with the new rules, several companies moved just at the last moment. On the one side this created a big flow of emails to users, on the other side it also meant big costs for companies.

This, but also its extraterritorial jurisdiction and concerns about enforceability were the main critics moved to the Regulation.

Other perspectives?

What do you think about the GDPR? Do you think, as some people, that it should be improved? Or, are you happy with this way to protect privacy?

Tell us in a comment! And, if you think to have a great idea to improve the Regulation, why don’t you try to discuss it with MEPs in Brussels?

We can give you the opportunity: apply for our Youth Exchange in Spain, in March, about Media and Web Manipulation. But be fast: application will close in few hours!

APPLY HERE!

L'articolo Privacy: EU celebrates Data Protection Day proviene da Youth Networks.

The European Parliament launched Instagram competition “I am Europe”: share your photo and win a trip in Brussels, to the open day of the European Parliament, on May 4^th.

The idea behind the contest is that Europe is, and will always be, about all of us. A point that, according to the Parliament, is important to remind expecially now, with the European elections (planned for May 23^rd – 26^th) closer and closer.

Every day, in fact, we publish our photos on social media, sharing pieces of our lives, that, from this point of view, are also pieces of the life of Europe.

Who can participate?

To participate “I am Europe” contest you need to be at least 18-year-old, live in one of the EU countries (UK included), own the copyrights of the photo, have a public account on  Instagram.

Rules

The rules are quite simple and consist of 3 steps:

• Share a photo of yourself or someone special to you and tell the story behind it;
• When posting the photo, use the hashtag #iameurope and tag @europeanparliament;
• Subscribe to the European elections platform: thistimeimvoting.eu

Winners

Among all the published photos, there will be only 6 winners.

5 will be chosen by the platform;

1 will be chosen by users: every day, in fact, the Instagram account of the European Parliament will share the best photos. The one that will get more “likes” will be the winner.

The winning photos, and the other best (but not winning) photos, will be part of an exhibition during the Open day of May 4^th.

Deadline

You have time until April 1^st 2019, at 12.00 (time of Brussels)

To know more, download “Citizen’ App”, developed by the European Parliament, on your Smarphone: learn about this and much more opportunities and news.

L'articolo “I am Europe”: share a photo and fly to Brussels proviene da Youth Networks.

Imagine the possibility to have Europe and all what you need to know about it in the palm of your hand. Now it is possible, thanks to “Citizens’ App”, an app for Smartphone that provides you with all you need to know about the EU. You will be always updated about events, initiatives, policies, projects…

The app, developed by the European Parliament, will give you the possibility to monitor EU work, even at a local level. 
As creators declare, it “records the achievements of the European Union, explains our current work, defines our future goals, and describes the European Parliament’s role in them”

The app

It is quite easy to use, has a very intuitive interface and you will have the opportunity to personalize it as you want. In fact you can filter contents according to your location and to your interests, choosing among 20 different topics. It is also possible to search for events directly on an interactive map.

In this way you will get notifications every time something is happening around you or there are relevant news or initiatives related to the topics you are mostly interested in. You can add events to your own personal calendar, bookmark initiatives ad share them on your social media.

In the section “Europe and I”, you can get information about what are opportunities, for your passions, job and family. Furthermore, you can find analysis of the trends that will define the future of the Union.

Lastly, in the app you can even find dossiers about the most relevant topics, like immigration, environment and data protection.

Finally the app is available in all the 24 official European languages.

How to download the app

So, what are you waiting for? Download the app!

It is available both for Apple and for Android.

L'articolo Citizens’App: Europe in your hands proviene da Youth Networks.

European elections of  May 23^rd – 26^th 2019 are closer and closer. Do you want to have an active role in the campaign? Become an Ambassador of the elections!

More and more young people are in mobility abroad. How can they vote? Who will give them useful information? These are the main issues this project is trying to face.

“Erasmus Vote Power” and “GaragErasmus Foundation”, in a project co-financed by the European Parliament, are selecting young people who will be trained to get this role.

Who can apply?

If you are in a study or work exchange, if you are in ESC (or EVS) project, if you reside abroad, you can apply to become the Ambassador of your hosting country. Each EU Country will have just one ambassador.  
 

What will be your role?

The idea of garagErasmus is to “engage with the Erasmus Generation to raise awareness on the upcoming elections, especially focusing on how people currently in mobility experiences abroad can cast their vote for the elections from their host countries”.

In fact, voting rules differ from country to country, so many citizens don’t know how to vote while abroad.

You will be asked to organize an informal event, in order to spread what you learned at the training and distribute the material you will get.

The training

The training event, organized by the European Parliament, will take place in Brussels, on February 8^th.The aim is to make of you “the main actors in the most important event for European Democracy”. Therefore, it will:

• – provide you with an overview of the institutional campaign for the elections;
• – give you essential campaign skills, related to communication and advocacy approaches.

The accommodation for the event is free and you will have a travel cap of 100 euro.

  Be fast!

You can apply until January 20^th 2019, so be as fast as possible, in order not to lose such a great opportunity.

To apply visit this page, where you will find more information and the application form.

L'articolo EU elections: become an Ambassador! proviene da Youth Networks.