SP(2023)48

Results of vote in Parliament

Debate in Parliament

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the European Year of Youth 2022 legacy.

The text adopted in plenary was tabled by the EPP, S&D, Renew, Greens/EFA and the Left groups.

Conditions for establishing and deploying European Years

Parliament welcomed the European Year of Youth 2022 as the EU’s strong commitment to young and future generations. It stressed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, young people were most impacted by the sanitary measures, which affected their access to a social and cultural life and damaged their access to education.

Members deeply regretted the conditions of the launch of the Year, especially the hasty timespan for adopting the regulation, which delayed the implementation and the financing of many projects. Therefore, it called on the Commission to extend the Year until the next Europe Day on 9 May 2023 without prejudice to the start of the European Year of Skills.

Ensuring meaningful youth engagement and involvement in policy and decision-making

The resolution highlighted that one third of the Conference on the Future of Europe’s citizens panel participants were young people aged between 16 and 25. The Commission is called on to adopt a fully-fledged ‘EU Youth Test’ to ensure the meaningful engagement, participation and commitment of young people in the preparation of all EU policies.

Parliament reiterated its request to the Commission and the Member States to develop and deploy global and EU citizenship modules in national curricula and learning mobility experiences to contribute to a more active and participatory citizenship, a more youth-inclusive political system and to combat racism in all its forms, discrimination and gender-based violence. Necessary tools and opportunities should be provided for teachers to actively engage in creating an EU common framework on citizenship education, for example through Erasmus+ teaching academies or Jean Monnet Teacher Training.

Stepping up measures catering for young people’s wellbeing

Parliament also reiterated its call for the Commission and Member States to draft a European Plan for mental health protection in education and training, including informal and non-formal learning, in order to care for our younger generation’s wellbeing in all its forms. Members highlighted the importance of ensuring that EU programmes provide sufficient financial support to young people and youth-led organisations to undertake mobility experiences, be they for learning, training or solidarity purposes.

The Commission and Member States are called on to propose a common legal framework to ensure fair remuneration for traineeships and apprenticeships.

Investing in the next generation through education

Member States are called on to:

- significantly increase public spending on education, including digital education, vocational and educational training, upskilling and reskilling;

- fully implement the European Education Area by 2025;

- take the adequate measures needed to reinforce their digital infrastructure, connectivity and educational curricula and to adequately train teachers and educators and to provide guidelines to foster digital literacy in order to enhance new teaching methods and equip young people to effectively access information, debunk disinformation and address online violence such as incitement to hatred, racism, online child sexual abuse, gender-based violence, cyberbullying and ghosting.

T9-0424/2022

B9-0512/2022