Youth on the Move

One of the flagship initiatives of the Europe 2020 strategy, Youth on the Move aims to respond to the challenges faced by young people and to help them succeed in the knowledge economy. Launched on 15 September 2010, this strategy is focused on supporting young people, bringing together both education and training, and employment. The initiative focuses on four main lines of action:

• Contribute to building and modernising lifelong learning systems so as to develop the key skills, competencies, and learning outcomes of individuals, in line with labour market needs. This includes supporting learning through non-formal and informal educational activities.
• Promote the performance and attractiveness of Europe's higher education to ensure it is competitive and well-placed internationally. This includes fostering innovation and encouraging student and researcher mobility.
• Encourage the transnational mobility of young people for learning, employability, and social and personal development, so as to support the aspiration that by 2020 all young people in Europe should have the possibility to spend a part of their educational pathway abroad.
• Improve the employment situation of young people by launching a Youth employment framework outlining policies priorities for action at national and EU level.

Part of the wider 'Europe 2020' strategy

The impetus behind these action lines is the Europe 2020 strategy, whose headline targets include the following goals:

• the share of early school leavers should be reduced to under 10% by 2020;
• at least 40% of the population aged 30-34 should have completed tertiary or equivalent education by 2020; and
• 75% of the population aged 20-64 should be employed by 2020.

Youth on the Move embodies the recognition that Europe's future prosperity depends on its young people, and acknowledges that quality education and training, successful labour market integration and more mobility of young people are fundamental to achieving the Europe 2020 objectives.

An employment strategy

In today's climate, with youth unemployment at almost 21%, and 5 million people under the age of 25 looking for a job, the EU has realised that something needs to be done. On average across Europe, too many young people leave school early and too few enter higher education, which continues to jeopardise Europe's future skills base. With this in mind, Youth on the Move aims to help young people "gain the knowledge, skills and experience needed to make their first job a reality".

An umbrella strategy

Being one of the Europe 2020 flagship initiatives, this is a framework agenda that announces new key actions and reinforces existing activities at the EU and national levels. It aims to bring all initiatives and actions related to youth, for both education and training, and employment, under the same umbrella. In doing this, it also brings together the related EU funding programmes on education, youth, and learning mobility, as well as the Structural Funds. The Commission intends to support Member States in designing policies, while respecting the subsidiary principle.

Key Actions

Specifically, Youth on the Move proposes 28 key actions aimed at making education and training more relevant to young people's needs and encouraging more of them to take advantage of EU grants to study or train in another country. These are all aimed at increasing young people's employability and access to the labour market. The initiative includes the following targeted actions:

• The launch of the Youth on the Move website, which provides a single point of access to information about opportunities to study or gain work experience abroad, including advice about EU grants and individual rights.
• The implementation of a mobility scoreboard to benchmark and measure Member State progress in dismantling legal and technical barriers to learning mobility.
• The creation, in cooperation with the European Investment Bank (EIB), of a European student lending facility to support student mobility.
• The publication of a feasibility study for a multi-dimensional global university ranking system, to provide a more complete and realistic picture of higher education performance than existing rankings do.
• The development of a Youth on the Move card, to facilitate mobility by providing benefits and discounts for young people across Europe in line with other student cards.
• Support for a new pilot project 'Your first EURES job', managed by the network of European Public Employment Services, to provide advice and support to young jobseekers who want to work abroad and to companies, particularly SMEs.
• The launch of a new European Vacancy Monitor to improve transparency and information on available jobs across Europe.
• A proposal for a European Skills Passport, based on Europass, to increase transparency of competence acquired through both formal and non-formal learning. 
• Use of the Commission's new European Progress micro-finance facility, which aims to provide financial support for young entrepreneurs.
• Encouragement for Member States to invest 2% of GDP in higher education and step up efforts to modernise higher education systems in the areas of curricula, governance, and funding.
• The publication in one document of the relevant European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings to improve understanding of the rights of students studying abroad, such as recognition of diplomas and access to universities.
• Strengthen bilateral and regional policy dialogue on youth employment, within the EU, with the European Neighbourhood, as well as with organisations like the ILO, OECD, and G20.