European youth: grants to bodies active at European level, 2004-2006 action programme

PURPOSE : to give a legal basis to the Community action programme on youth. CONTENT : through various Council meetings, Commission Papers and Parliamentary resolutions, the European Union is committed to encouraging a youth movement. In particular the EU hopes to generate a better understanding of the EU amongst Europe's youth. For several years support for youth programmes have been provided under Budget headings A-3023 for the co-financing of operational cost of the European Union Youth Forum and heading A-3029, which provides support for international non-governmental youth organisations. This support has been provided without any legal basis. Rather, funding has flowed from the EU's budgetary headings and has come under the Commission's administrative expenditure. More recently, however, the adoption of a Council Regulation 1605/2002/EC on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities and the decision to base the structure of the Commission budget on the Activity Based Budgeting (ABB) approach requires that basic acts be adopted for grants hitherto financed under appropriations. This applies equally to those budget headings currently governing the EU's youth programmes. The purpose of this Decision is therefore to adopt an act providing a basis for operating grants to bodies active in the field of youth. It is proposed that funding should apply for a three year period, from 2004-2006. The proposal is based on Article 149 TEC, which provides that Community action shall be aimed, inter alia, at encouraging the development of youth exchanges and exchanges of socio-educative importance. Since the proposal addresses the technical need to provide a legal basis for existing operations, the amount provided for is based on budgets, which have already been allocated through the EU's 2003 financial budget. The total amount proposed is EUR 11.52 million.�