The European Youth Forum and the European Trade Federation, as well as activists and EU lawmakers, gathered in front of the European Parliament in Brussels on 10 November, the International Interns Day, to demand more rights for trainees.
The goal of the event was to highlight the value of young people’s work and to ask for more consistent rights and fair working conditions for interns. Unpaid and unfairly paid internships are a common practice in different EU countries, and several attendees at the event reported having witnessed such practices during their career.
The European Youth Forum (EYF), a non-profit association that fights for youth rights, is demanding a ban on unpaid internships.
“We need binding legislation to ban unpaid internships in Europe […] unpaid internships amplify inequalities and not everyone can afford to work for free, not everyone can afford to undertake an unpaid internship, and that’s why we are protesting. We think that’s unfair that young people are not paid for their work and that’s not respecting a basic human right” Maria Rodríguez, a member of the EYF’s board, told EURACTIV.
Several lawmakers in the European Parliament participated in the protest, mainly from the Socialists and Democrats, the Greens, and The Left.
Alicia Homs Ginel, a Spanish MEP from S&D, explained that in the next months the European Parliament will push forward a directive proposal for the Commission to ban unpaid internships and promote quality internships.
“In the future, we will have a directive on quality internships that will include this ban on unpaid internships, which is a way of exploitation for young people” she added.
In 2020, the European Parliament adopted a resolution urging member states to ban unpaid internships and called on the Commission to propose a binding instrument for all member states.
European Parliament calls for ban on unpaid internships
With youth unemployment on the rise across the EU, and aggravated further by the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, EU lawmakers called upon the European Commission and member states last week to increase their support for young people in precarious working conditions.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
Source: euractiv.com
