Paris, Ile-de-France (F), 18 May 2013

During the General Assembly of the Assembly of European Regions (AER) in Paris, the Eurodyssey programme changed Presidency in a hand over from the Azores region (P) to the Île-de-France region (F).

Vasco Cordeiro, President of the Azores (P) region underlined that: “Eurodyssey, a leading professional youth mobility programme, has been for nearly 30 years the most emblematic programme of our organisation, inspiring other mobility programmes, which were created since then – Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus, EURES”.

Michèle Sabban, Vice-president of Île-de-France, set her goals for this two-year mandate: “My priority will be to continue the constructive dialogue initiated with Mr Barroso. Eurodyssey will contribute to the youth intiative of the European Commission and I am confident that we will manage to increase significantly the number of Eurodyssey beneficiaries, enabling more young people to get work experience across European regions.”

Background

Eurodyssey is an exchange programme of the Assembly of European Regions (AER) which allows young job seekers aged between 18 and 30 to benefit from a traineeship placement abroad for a period of three to seven months. The objective is to let young people gain professional experience at the same time as they get an opportunity to improve their knowledge of a foreign language.

The Assembly of European Regions (AER – aer.eu) is the largest independent network of regions in wider Europe. Bringing together 250 regions from 35 countries and 16 interregional organisations, AER is the political voice of its members and a forum for interregional co-operation.

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