More than one in two young Europeans say they are prepared to work abroad - The European Commission has published a Eurobarometer survey on youth on the move in Europe. This survey illustrates that more than 50% of young people would be prepared to work abroad if there was an opportunity to do so. The Commission says that this is good news because labour mobility in the EU currently stands at only 3%. Having the funds to work abroad remains the biggest barrier to this form of mobility. The three main trends that have emerged from this survey are as follows: (1) Working abroad: More than half of young people in Europe (53%) said they were willing - or would like - to work in another European country. Slightly more expressed a preference for working abroad for a limited time (28%) than for the long term (25%). Young men (56%) were more willing to work abroad than young women (49%) and the 15-19 age group were more willing to work abroad than 30-35-year-olds (63% vs. 42%). Those with higher qualifications were also more likely to want to live abroad than those with lower secondary level qualifications (55% vs. 33%). (2) Studying abroad: 14% of young Europeans have spent time abroad for studies or training. People who have spent time studying abroad are also more likely to work abroad after their studies. One in seven (14%) young Europeans said they had stayed abroad - or were staying abroad at the time of the survey - for education or training. The proportion ranged from 3% in Turkey to 39% in Cyprus and 41% in Luxembourg. Of the 14% who had been abroad for education or training purposes, 43% went for higher education studies and 26% spent a traineeship in a company as part of their higher education. Forty-three per cent said they had been abroad as part of their school education (lower and upper secondary school) and 33% as part of their vocational education and training (VET). Twenty-one per cent did a traineeship or apprenticeship as part of their VET programme. Young adults with a higher education qualification and those currently in higher education were overall the most likely to say that they had stayed abroad and city dwellers were almost twice as likely as those living in towns and rural areas to have been abroad for educational purposes (21% vs. 12%). (3) Funding: 65% used private funds to finance their learning mobility. EU programmes such as Erasmus funded 15% of studies and training abroad. The proportion of young people who received national or regional study loans or grants to finance their stay abroad varied widely across the countries surveyed. While roughly half of respondents in Norway, Luxembourg and Iceland said they had used these means of financing, the proportion was less than 20% in 17 out of 31 countries surveyed. (4) Benefits of living abroad: Young people consider broad-based skills such as improving their ability to speak a foreign language, cultural awareness, adaptability and interpersonal competences - all of which are highly valued by employers - as the most important benefit of going abroad. In 18 out of 31 countries surveyed, the largest proportions of respondents thought that having improved their foreign language skills was the most or second most important benefit of their stay abroad. (5) Barriers: A large majority of young Europeans have not spent any time abroad for education purposes. Thirty-three per cent said the main reason was a lack of funding and the expense of staying abroad. A quarter said that family commitments prevented them from going abroad. Young women were much more likely to select this reason than young men (31% vs. 19%). Similarly, respondents with only lower secondary general education qualifications were more likely to choose this reason (38%) than respondents in other educational groups (24%-28%). (6) Business start-ups: 43% of young Europeans said they would like to set up their own business in the future, while 42% were not interested. The proportion of those keen to set up their own business was considerably higher among 15-19 year-olds (50%) than 30-35 year-olds (34%) and among those with VET and higher education qualifications. Six per cent of respondents said they had already set up their own business. Young people in Bulgaria were the most likely to want to set up their own business (74%) while young Italians were the least likely (27%). The reasons cited for not wanting to set up their own business varied but one in seven said it was too risky and 13% thought it would be too complicated. (7) Participation in an organisation or voluntary work: Almost half (46%) of young Europeans are involved in a sports club, youth club, or in a youth or cultural organisation. Almost a quarter of young people interviewed declared that they had taken part in a voluntary work activity over the past twelve months (24%). For this Flash Eurobarometer “Youth on the Move” (No 319a+b) 57,000 young Europeans were interviewed by telephone between 26 January and 4 February. (I.L./transl.fl)