Strasbourg, 05/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - Following British Labour member Robert Evans, its rapporteur on the Commission recommendation on mobility within the EU for students, trainees, young volunteers, teachers and instructors, the European Parliament adopted 56 amendments aimed at strengthening the scope of this recommendation, on which it will give its opinion in first reading, according to codecision procedure. In particular, the Parliament: - added among the beneficiaries the persons at post-graduate level, post-doctorate level and confirmed research workers who are carrying out an activity linked to their research, and students and teachers who are working independently outside Community programmes such as Socrate or Leonardo da Vinci; - called for appropriate indicators to be elaborated in order to compare results obtained; - strengthened provisions concerning social coverage that those concerned can keep in order not to be penalised by their mobility (the same is true for the risk of double taxation); - called on applicant countries to be more aware of the recommendation in order to encourage participation by their nationals in mobility programmes; - insisted on the development of better procedures in order to facilitate the mutual recognition of diplomas and qualifications.
The European Commission was not able to take some of these amendments on board. It specified that, even though it can agree with their objectives, it could not agree to proposals that require it to undertake new tasks for which it does not have the necessary resources, mainly staffing (see page 13 on the subject of the discussion held by the Commission in Strasbourg on Wednesday on the general problem of suitability for use between available resources and the tasks entrusted to it).