Last year, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution calling on the Commission to “propose a common legal framework to ensure fair remuneration for traineeships and apprenticeships in order to avoid exploitative practices”, following a campaign by the ETUC Youth Committee (see ETUC press release of 10 November 2022). The issue of internships is now on the European Commission’s Work Programme for 2023.
Although national regulations and future EU rules take precedence over standardization, AFNOR, the French National Standardization Body, is proposing to elaborate a new international standard on “Criteria for quality Internships” (ISO 29997). The aim of this new standard is to set quality criteria and guidelines for effective and quality internships (both during and outside of education, and at national and transnational level), to guide the concerned parties in a win-win relation and to simplify the internship process for every type of structure. The CEN Workshop Agreement 17541:2020 “European Criteria for Quality Internships”, which the ETUC contributed to, will be used as the basis for this future international standard.
For more information, please contact Natalia GIORGI at ETUC
Giovanni COLLOT
gcollot@cencenelec.eu
