Estonia will held for the first time the EU Presidency as from the 1st of July. The Presidency has presented its working programme which includes a chapter dedicated to the promotion of new skills and support to young people to integrate into the labour market. Estonia will held the Presidency for the next six months. 

One of the Presidency priorities is to work for an inclusive and sustainable Europe which supports equal opportunities for high quality education, employment, access to services and development of skills.  For this purpose, we will focus on

• Ensuring equal opportunities in the labour market and social inclusion: development of skills, high-quality education, employment and access to services.
• Move forward the initiatives triggered by the New Skills Agenda and subsequent Commission initiatives on youth and education.
• They will continue to review the Europass Decision to achieve a better implementation and synergy between the digital tools designed for documenting people’s skills and qualifications, and to modernise these tools for the digital age.
• Supporting work-life balance in order to ensure gender equality and to reach high-quality working life. They will keep the debate on the reconciliation of family life to increase women’s participation in the labour market and to reduce their care burden.
• During the Estonian Presidency, discussions will continue on the common ground for EU cooperation in the field of youth work and youth policy from 2019 onwards. Estonia’s goal is to create more opportunities for young people to have a say in these discussions.

Read the programme here

You can follow the Estonian Presidency activities here & on twitter