European Solidarity Corps: one year since launch

One year since the European Commission launched the European Solidarity Corps, 42,745 young people from all Member States have signed up. 2,166 of them have started their placements with 1,434 organisations.

Marianne Thyssen, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, added: "Participating in the European Solidarity Corps is not only a great way to show solidarity, it also allow young people to develop new skills and brings an added value to one's CV. I hope our proposal for a stronger Solidarity Corps will be adopted soon so that we can increase opportunities for our European youth even more."

Since the launch, European Solidarity Corps participants have been active all over Europe. In August 2017, for instance, a group of European Solidarity Corps volunteers arrived in Norcia, Italy, to help with the ongoing efforts to repair damage and rebuild social services for the local community affected by the severe earthquakes that had hit the region a year earlier. In total, 230 European Solidarity Corps members will support Italian communities affected by the earthquakes until 2020.

Other Solidarity Corps participants work, for instance, with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds or with special needs, with refugees or the elderly, from Rotterdam in the Netherlands to Aveiro in Portugal, and many more places in Europe.

The Commission's proposal to reinforce the European Solidarity Corps by giving it its own budget and legal base, and to broaden its activities, is currently being discussed in the Council and the European Parliament. In the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council, Member States reached an informal agreement amongst themselves on 20 November 2017 which paves the way for a final agreement with the European Parliament.