European Scouting mobilises for EU Year of Volunteers

The campaign to have 2011 designated as EU Year of volunteers continues. European Scouting is urging the EU Commission to move forward to make it happen.

During spring and summer, European Scouting and many National Scout Organisations campaigned actively towards Members of the European Parliament to have the Parliament call for 2011 to be designated as the European Year of Volunteering. The campaign was highly successful and clear majority of the MEPs joined this demand making it the official position of the Parliament.

Now it is time to continue the mobilisation! The European Commission, the Executive of the European Union, has not yet moved to further this proposal. European Scouting, together with other civil society organisations, met on 11 November with the Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Vladimir Spidla, to discuss the issue and the importance of this year for millions of volunteers around Europe.

The next important step is to have the Governments of EU Member States join the campaign to push the European Commission to move forward with the issue. Therefore the European Scout Region encourages all National Scout Organisations to contact their Ministers responsible for youth affairs before the next meeting of the EU Council of Ministers on the 20th November.

If it becomes a reality, 2011 will be a massive opportunity to raise the visibility and recognition of volunteering in Scouting as well as advancing a new understanding in the European institutions that will be supportive as outlined in the Resolutions 9/2007 of the European Scout Conference and 12/2008 of the World Scout Conference.

We provide you with the list of contacts, a template letter and a background document in 6 languages: English, French, German, Polish, Portugese and Italian.

For more information and support in the campaign actions, do not hesitate to contact .

Template for a letter to your Minister for Youth affairs: Template for a letter to your Minister for Youth affairs 75.00 kB
Contacts for the national youth administration: Contacts for the national youth administration 185.00 kB
Background document:
English European_Year_Background_Paper_EN 150.34 kB
French European_Year_Background_Paper_FR 152.64 kB
German European_Year_Background_Paper_DE 174.75 kB
Polish European_Year_Background_Paper_PL 308.54 kB
Portugese European_Year-Background_Paper_PT 150.46 kB
Italian European_Year-Background_Paper_IT 141.42 kB
Link to European Parliament declaration:
European Parliament declaration on 2011