YOUTH : COMMISSIONER PROMISES RECOMMENDATION ON INFORMAL LEARNING.

• Position: Androulla Vassiliou

Speaking at a meeting of the European Parliament's Intergroup on Youth, Androulla Vassiliou, the commissioner for education, youth and culture, has promised to come forward in the coming months with a recommendation on non-formal and informal learning. The commissioner will also develop a Euroskills passport to record' non-formal and informal skills. The intergroup, which held its constitutive meeting in February 2010, was ostensibly discussing the European Commission's Youth on the Move' flagship initiative, launched in September 2010.

Speaking alongside the commissioner, on 25 January, was Damien Abad (EPP, France), president of the intergroup. He detailed the relatively new group's aims as helping EU institutions address the challenges facing European youth, notably unemployment and poverty, climate change, mobility and discrimination. More concretely, the intergroup talks of using a cross-party approach in the EP to help ensure smoother transition from education to the labour market, implementing the European Youth Pact as well as supporting new EU initiatives for greater youth mobility, such as an Erasmus programme for apprentices.

Also present at the 25 January meeting was Miklos Soltesz, Hungary's state secretary for social, family and youth affairs. He promised to push for stronger European Council conclusions on youth matters. The Hungarian Presidency is organising a high-level EU youth conference in Budapest, on 1-4 March. Another speaker was Peter Matjasic...