The European Parliament,

–  having regard to Articles 165 and 166 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU),

–  having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and in particular Article 14 thereof,

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 12 December 2014 on entrepreneurship in education and training(1),

–  having regard to Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin,

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 20 May 2014 on promoting youth entrepreneurship to foster social inclusion of young people(2),

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 12 May 2009 on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (‘ET 2020’)(3),

–  having regard to the Council recommendation of 22 April 2013 on establishing a Youth Guarantee(4),

–  having regard to the Council recommendation of 20 December 2012 on the validation of non-formal and informal learning(5),

–  having regard to the Council recommendation of 28 June 2011 entitled ‘Youth on the Move – promoting the learning mobility of young people’(6),

–  having regard to the Council resolution of 27 November 2009 on a renewed framework for European cooperation in the youth field (2010-2018)(7),

–  having regard to Recommendation 2006/962/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning(8),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 19 June 2013 entitled ‘Working together for Europe’s young people: A call to action on youth unemployment’ (COM(2013)0447),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 9 January 2013 entitled ‘Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan: Reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe’ (COM(2012)0795),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 20 November 2012 entitled ‘Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes’ (COM(2012)0669),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 20 December 2011 entitled ‘Education and Training in a smart, sustainable and inclusive Europe’ (COM(2011)0902),

–  having regard to the Commission report of 28 January 2015 entitled ‘Entrepreneurship Education: A road to success’,

–  having regard to the Commission Social Europe guide of March 2013 on ‘Social Economy and Social Enterprises’ (ISBN: 978-92-79-26866-3),

–  having regard to its resolution of 28 April 2015 on follow-up on the implementation of the Bologna Process(9),

–  having regard to its resolution of 11 September 2012 on Education, Training and Europe 2020(10),

–  having regard to its resolution of 1 December 2011 on tackling early school leaving(11),

–  having regard to its resolution of 12 May 2011 on early years learning in the European Union(12),

–  having regard to its resolution of 18 May 2010 on key competences for a changing world: implementation of the Education and Training 2010 work programme(13),

–  having regard to its resolution of 18 December 2008 on delivering lifelong learning for knowledge, creativity and innovation – implementation of the ‘Education & Training 2010 work programme’(14),

–  having regard to Rule 52 of its Rules of Procedure,

–  having regard to the report of the Committee on Culture and Education and the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (A8-0239/2015),

A.  whereas youth entrepreneurship needs to be an important integral part of the political strategy to support today’s generation of youth in terms of EU goals for growth, employment, education and social inclusion and to reduce youth unemployment in the EU;

B.  whereas entrepreneurship should be understood in its broader sense as the ability to turn ideas into actions;

C.  whereas in February 2015, 4,85 million young people were unemployed in the EU-28, which is unacceptably high, and although youth unemployment is diminishing – it has decreased by 494 000 compared with February 2014 – this is taking place at too slow a pace;

D.  having regard to the high rates of youth unemployment and to the fact that the fiscal consolidation of the Member States mainly affected by the crisis should not be carried out at the expense of jobs occupied by young people; whereas, as a result of such high youth unemployment, young people are experiencing increased levels of poverty and social exclusion, especially in the case of those from disadvantaged and vulnerable groups; recognises and welcomes, however, the fact that commitments have been made to speed up the delivery of Youth Employment Initiative funds to Member States, but calls for even stronger commitments from the Commission to tackle this serious problem;

E.  whereas the gap between education and training and the job market is one of the causes of youth unemployment and of the large number of unfilled vacancies in the EU. and should be addressed also by empowering young people with the key competences, including a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, that are needed if they are to participate confidently in today’s knowledge-based economy and society;

F.  whereas the European Union, via the Europe 2020 strategy and its flagship initiatives on ‘New skills and jobs’, ‘Digital Agenda for Europe’, ‘Innovation Union’ and ‘Youth on the move’, as well as its targeted support for women entrepreneurs and disadvantaged and disabled people, promotes the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship by fostering entrepreneurial mindsets and related knowledge, skills and competences that can boost competitiveness and growth which will be smart, sustainable and inclusive;

G.  whereas entrepreneurship is an important driver of economic growth and job creation as it creates new companies and jobs, opens up new markets, strengthens competitiveness, improves productivity and innovation, strengthens European competitiveness and creates wealth, and should therefore be equally accessible for all;

H.  whereas entrepreneurship, and in particular social entrepreneurship, are important drivers of social cohesion and sustainability that can boost the economy whilst simultaneously alleviating deprivation, social exclusion and other societal problems;

I.  whereas entrepreneurship and in particular small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the EU economy and represent the most important and primary source of new employment; whereas women’s entrepreneurial potential is an underexploited source of economic growth and jobs;

J.  whereas cultures that value and reward entrepreneurship competences and entrepreneurial behaviours such as creativity, innovation, initiative, calculated risk-taking, independent thinking and the identification of opportunities, as well as leadership qualities, promote a propensity to develop new solutions to economic, social and environmental challenges by integrating knowledge components within education that bring together theory and practice, thus diminishing barriers between the business experience and education; whereas it is therefore of paramount importance that these personal competencies are embedded in the educational system and are part of daily life at all levels;

K.  whereas in certain Member States business start-ups (of all types, including social entrepreneurship or business for personal profit) are not sufficiently recognised or included as a career path, and there is little support for aspiring entrepreneurs within the educational system;

L.  whereas young entrepreneurs face numerous challenges and difficulties, including a lack of experience, of the right skills and of access to finance and infrastructure;

M.  whereas recent studies suggest that entrepreneurship competences can be learned and that entrepreneurship education, if correctly designed, implemented and accessible for all, can have a very positive impact on people’s lives and employability, as well as on start-up rates and survival rates of enterprises;

N.  whereas in order to lead to robust conclusions, the measurement of the impact of entrepreneurship education must be carried out with a critical approach, as well as being based on sound evidence and relying on established statistical tools and techniques;

O.  whereas entrepreneurship education should incorporate a social dimension including teaching about fair trade, social enterprises and alternative business models such as cooperatives, with a view to achieving a social, inclusive and sustainable economy;

P.  whereas an entrepreneurial mindset enhances a young person’s employability, engenders in that person qualities that are essential for overcoming challenges in both professional and private life, and helps prevent an increase in poverty and social exclusion; whereas easier access to microfinance mechanisms can help achieve these goals;

Q.  whereas education and vocational training as a whole are of primordial importance with regard to each individual’s personal development, and therefore have to be both sufficiently broad in order to lay foundations for lifelong development and deepening of knowledge and for the acquisition of transversal skills, and sufficiently practical, thus allowing individuals to have real careers and a valuable professional and private life; whereas there is a direct correlation between the successful combination of these two aspects of education and a reduction in the risk of youth unemployment;

R.  whereas the spirit and skills of entrepreneurship can be acquired, learned and developed by every individual; whereas each type and level of education corresponds to a specific window of opportunity for building certain skills and capacities for entrepreneurship as part of the general acquirement of key competences;

S.  whereas entrepreneurship skills are linked to other sets of skills such as ICT skills, problem-solving skills and financial literacy, which should be promoted;

T.  whereas education and training are of paramount importance in terms of motivation and possibilities for young people to start their own entrepreneurial projects;

U.  whereas education, as a public good, has to be fully inclusive and integrated, placing special emphasis on providing equal access to students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds;

V.  whereas young people will be better qualified to engage in business on a transnational scale if they are proficient in foreign languages;

W.  whereas under-represented and disadvantaged groups need special attention and support throughout their education, also by engaging parents and communities in the educational process, as well as requiring help in order to start, run or grow a business or enterprise;

X.  whereas young people benefit from entrepreneurial training and education as well as from practical entrepreneurial experience, which help develop their skills and talent, enabling them to develop confidence, and contribute to the creation of new businesses, employability and innovation; whereas entrepreneurship is a hugely underutilised option for many young people with disabilities;

Y.  whereas social and inclusive businesses participate actively in innovative sustainable growth, promote greater cohesion within society and local communities, and can create employment opportunities for young people, including those who are socially vulnerable and those furthest from the labour market;

Z.  whereas not enough people follow through on their ideas to set up a business, and there are, disproportionately, even fewer female than male entrepreneurs (even more so in case of women coming from vulnerable social groups and facing double discrimination), and, whilst women entrepreneurs are on average higher educated than male entrepreneurs, they are also more often active in less innovative, less fast-growing sectors, with smaller companies than those of male entrepreneurs; whereas ways to overcome the factors which particularly discourage women from taking up, or benefiting more from, the option of entrepreneurship must be actively promoted(15);

AA.  whereas chambers of handicrafts, industry and commerce offer targeted programmes in some Member States to support business start-ups;

AB.  whereas education and training are mainly national competencies and some Member States have yet to develop a cross-cutting policy or a strategic approach to entrepreneurship education or entrepreneurial curricula and teaching methods; whereas not all teachers and education leaders in Europe are sufficiently trained in entrepreneurship education, either through continuous professional development or through their initial training, which might have an impact on the potential for entrepreneurship becoming sufficiently embedded in education systems(16);

AC.  whereas teachers should be able to liaise with entrepreneurs and define learning objectives in partnership with them, and be provided with the right support and resources, in order to implement learner-centred strategies and adapt their teaching methods to the needs of their vulnerable students;

AD.  whereas non-formal and informal learning activities complement and enrich formal learning by offering various kinds of empowering learning experience, and should therefore be recognised as privileged sources for acquiring and developing entrepreneurship competences;

AE.  whereas formal and informal learning can play a key role in developing and sustaining entrepreneurial skills, especially amongst marginalised groups;

AF.  whereas non-formal and informal learning activities are particularly relevant to young people with fewer opportunities, providing them with an additional source of learning and a possible route into formal education and training;

AG.  whereas teaching by experienced entrepreneurs creates a positive image of entrepreneurship and facilitates the step towards entrepreneurship;

AH.  whereas entrepreneurship, including social entrepreneurship, should be integrated in the training of teachers and career advisers;

AI.  whereas national education systems have been evolving at different paces in reaction to changes on the labour market;

AJ.  whereas the Erasmus+ programme, which runs from 2014 to 2020, aims to modernise education, training and youth work across Europe and is open to education, training, youth and sports organisations across all sectors of lifelong learning; whereas it will provide opportunities for over 4 million Europeans to study, train, gain work experience and volunteer abroad;

AK.  whereas entrepreneurship already plays a role in the Erasmus+ programme, being one of the expected results of mobility actions;

AL.  whereas it is important to promote and encourage mobility of young entrepreneurs, through programmes, such as Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (2009-2015), that enable young entrepreneurs to take part in cross-border exchanges and to learn from experienced entrepreneurs running small businesses, as well as creating opportunities to address gender inequalities in entrepreneurship; whereas more funds need to be allocated to such programmes in order to increase young people's participation;

AM.  whereas younger people are inclined to express a preference for self-employment, and as many as 45 % of young people aged between 15 and 24 say they would prefer to be self-employed(17);

AN.  whereas the business community at local, national and European level could make more considerable contributions in the form of skills-based volunteering, partnerships with educational institutions, and collaboration with policymakers;

AO.  whereas considerable contributions are made by civil society organisations (non-governmental groups such as trade unions, employers’ associations and other social groups), among them the Junior Achievement – Young Enterprise Europe initiative, which provides informal and lifelong entrepreneurship education and training; whereas these contributions stand in need of further recognition, although they may not lead to a certified formal diploma; whereas such contributions are also made by enterprises providing training for themselves;

Emphasis on entrepreneurial skills and competences

1.  Acknowledges the role of lifelong learning and international mobility as constituting a key measure in Europe’s response to globalisation and the shift to knowledge-based economies; notes, specifically, the importance of the ‘sense of initiative and entrepreneurship’, as included among the eight ‘Key Competences for Lifelong Learning ‒ A European Reference Framework’, considered to be needed by all individuals for personal fulfilment and development, active European citizenship and participation, social inclusion and employment;

2.  Calls on the Member States to promote entrepreneurial skills for young people through legislative action aimed at ensuring quality traineeships focusing on quality learning and adequate working conditions as tools to foster employability, as put forward by the Council Recommendation on a Quality Framework for Traineeships;

3.  Emphasises the need for a broad and clear definition of the key competence ‘a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship’, which involves fostering an entrepreneurial mindset characterised by proactiveness, creativity, innovation and risk-taking, as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in order to achieve objectives, and even the idea that the individual is aware of the context of his or her work and is able to seize opportunities that arise, with regard to both entrepreneurship and employment activity (in the latter case referred as ‘intrapreneurship’); has faith in the creative industry sectors and enterprises relating to culture, which can highlight business opportunities, especially for young people;

4.  Recalls that the creative industries are amongst the most entrepreneurial sectors, developing transferable skills such as creative thinking, problem-solving, teamwork and resourcefulness;

5.  Stresses the need for a broad approach to entrepreneurship as a set of transversal key competences for personal and professional purposes;

6.  Stresses the importance of organisational monitoring and auditing skills; encourages in particular the development of social and environmental audit, as an innovative monitoring tool;

7.  Is convinced that entrepreneurial skills and competences as well as transversal, cross-sector, occupation-specific and job-specific skills and competences should be promoted in order to increase the rates of youth self-employment and to provide the young generation with a real opportunity to start their own businesses and to help both themselves and society in general;

8.  Is convinced that the next step needed is to specify in detail how the key competences framework can be further implemented appropriately at each level of education for entrepreneurship competence, by including entrepreneurship knowledge, skills and attitudes as a learning outcome of each specific educational and apprenticeship programme;

9.  Stresses that at all levels and types of education the teaching of practical entrepreneurship skills and the fostering of motivation, sense of initiative and readiness should be provided, along with a sense of social responsibility; believes that modules in basic finance, economics and business environment should be integrated into school curricula, and should be accompanied by mentoring, tutoring and career guidance for students, including disadvantaged learners, in order to underpin and facilitate their understanding of the entrepreneurial process and develop an entrepreneurial mindset; highlights the role of informal and independent learning, including volunteering, in endowing young people with entrepreneurial spirit and skills;

10.  Calls on the Commission to emphasise the importance and role of different forms of social entrepreneurship, which are often a good way for young Europeans to gain initial experience in business;

11.  Emphasises the need to develop innovative pedagogies that are more participative and learner-centred, in order to encourage the acquisition of a set of transversal competences needed for the development of entrepreneurial mindsets;

12.  Recommends encouraging entrepreneurship as part of higher education and in alumni projects, also including social entrepreneurship models;

13.  Points out that promoting entrepreneurship through education can only succeed in a meaningful way if economic and social aspects appear in a balanced way in educational strategies;

14.  Emphasises that social inclusion and the fight against poverty can succeed notably via social entrepreneurship, which can boost employment, and by setting an entrepreneurial mindset which will be substantially beneficial for disadvantaged people;

15.  Stresses that dual training and company-sponsored study programmes have proved to be key in imparting the core competences of companies in those Member States where such programmes operate;

16.  Encourages full engagement and partnership among all stakeholders, and in particular local entrepreneurial organisations, businesses and educational institutions, in order to share best practices and experiences and improve young people’s entrepreneurial skills and education across the Member States;

17.  Stresses that a close link between company training and mainstream education is a successful model which should be strengthened and promoted, throughout Europe and beyond;

18.  Calls for closer collaboration with the private sector and the social partners with a view to encouraging a risk-taking, entrepreneurial and innovative culture (e.g. through structural commitments such as facilities for innovation and the exchange of ideas);

19.  Is convinced that the successful deployment of entrepreneurship competence is more and more dependent on accompanying media and digital competence, and that this interrelationship should receive a greater focus in education and training; emphasises the importance of equipping all young people with ICT competences and with transversal and entrepreneurial skills enabling them to fully exploit the potential of the digital world in order to help them create new forms of developing, imparting and promoting entrepreneurship, thus becoming more able to compete for jobs, become self-employed, learn to better understand their prospective employers’ behaviour and needs, and contribute to the innovative and competitive capability of employer organisation;

20.  Stresses that entrepreneurship competence should be developed and improved by a lifetime approach, including via work experience and non-formal and informal learning, and that its validation should be enhanced and supported since it contributes to career development;

21.  Recognises that a key element in the teaching of entrepreneurship is the proper preparation of teachers, and in particular the urgent need for high-quality training in order to ensure the authenticity of the educational process;

22.  Calls on the Member States to combat barriers to young entrepreneurs with disabilities, through the provision of training for service providers whose responsibilities include supporting people with disabilities, and through the adaptation of the premises on which support is provided in order to make them accessible to those with mobility challenges;

23.  Notes that promoting cooperation between secondary and tertiary education would allow increased dialogue among young people and encourage innovation;

24.  Stresses the need to improve the entrepreneurial culture within tertiary education by supporting and facilitating the creation of new companies by young people on the basis of academic research (spin-offs), reducing the bureaucratic burden involved in establishing such companies, and creating a clear and supportive regulatory framework for student entrepreneurs; considers that, in this context, schools and universities should allow time and space for, and grant recognition of, initiatives by young people so as to give them the necessary confidence to undertake new projects that may prove useful in setting up independent businesses; welcomes initiatives which reward young people for successful business ventures (e.g. an award for the best student company of the year); further emphasises the importance of companies giving young people the chance to obtain their first direct in-house work experience; reiterates the need to promote company visits and traineeship schemes with such objectives, so as to give young people an overview of the business world;

25.  Highlights that the business community has a key role to play in entrepreneurship education and training, providing an experienced-based learning that complement youth´s theoretical education;

26.  Stresses the crucial role played by various associations of young businesspeople in fostering entrepreneurship among young people, providing them with the opportunity to develop innovative projects and obtain business experience, and giving them the tools and the necessary confidence to set out as entrepreneurs;

Role of the EU institutions – coordination, methodology and financial tools

27.  Calls on the Council and the Commission, within their respective competences and in full compliance with the principle of subsidiarity, to develop methodological support and tools to made be available to national education systems in the area of entrepreneurship education and training, including social entrepreneurship, and to follow a coordinated approach calling on the Member States’ public administrations to cooperate more closely with companies in order to disseminate the key factors needed to improve entrepreneurship; calls on the Commission to increase the amount of support for young entrepreneurs under the European Structural and Investment Funds;

28.  Calls on the Council and Commission to apply a gender perspective in respect of methodology, communication and financial tools, in order to encourage greater engagement in entrepreneurship by girls and young women;

29.  Calls on the Commission to establish and boost entrepreneurial traineeships and exchange programmes, in order to give young people opportunities to gain hands-on experience and facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience;

30.  Calls on the Commission to elaborate a comprehensive strategy for developing transversal skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, initiative, collaboration, cooperation, self-direction, planning, leadership and team-building, at all levels and in all types of education and training, taking into account that they are beneficial for a broad range of occupations and sectors;

31.  Calls on the Commission to increase the focus on improving the development and assessment of transversal skills, including entrepreneurship and digital competence, within the Erasmus+ programme, while underlining that this programme should not be unilaterally oriented towards considerations of employability and that the low-threshold access to entrepreneurial activities should be maintained, particularly in the area of non-formal and informal education; also calls on the Commission to promote education policy reforms in Member States creating a coherent policy framework for Member States and the EU in this regard;

32.  Calls on the Commission to support the monitoring of ICT skills, problem-solving skills and financial literacy; calls on the Commission to carry out longitudinal research in this area;

33.  Calls on the Commission to support partnerships between educational institutions and companies via the use of the European Fund for Strategic Investment and, in particular, the European Social Fund, in order to encourage work-based learning in companies and foster entrepreneurship competences at national and local level;

34.  Calls on the Commission to support a European Entrepreneurship Education Network, on lines such as those of the European Entrepreneurship Education NETwork (EE-HUB), established in May 2015 and supported by European organizations and other stakeholders at European, national and local levels, as well as by national education authorities, which will gather and exchange best practices to be shared by educational institutions, educational organisations, vocational training institutions, businesses, authorities and social partners;

35.  Calls on the Commission to ensure coherent and effective coordination in the area of entrepreneurship education in the context of its broader EU lifelong learning strategy, the EU’s global strategies and the Juncker Commission’s plan;

36.  Proposes that the Commission maintain entrepreneurship education and training as one of the objectives of a future Erasmus+ programme in the next financial period (post-2020) in all its actions, including mobility, to contain the following elements:

37.  Calls on the Commission to investigate and address the factors that discourage women from taking up the option of entrepreneurship, whilst specifically promoting access to funding and support services for young female entrepreneurs;

38.  Calls on the Commission to coordinate and promote the exchange of best practices between Member States;

39.  Calls on the Commission to encourage better cooperation and exchange of good practices between Member States that have already integrated entrepreneurship education into their curricula and have achieved better progress in promoting youth entrepreneurship and those Member States that are still at the beginning of this process;

40.  Calls on the Commission to compile, by the end of 2017, a ‘best practice’ for disseminating entrepreneurial ability and promoting youth entrepreneurship in the Member States, submit a report on this to Parliament, and take the results of this work into account when evaluating its own funding procedures;

41.  Calls on the Member States to promote entrepreneurship education as a way to foster transversal competences for a better management of learners’ personal and professional lives;

42.  Calls on the Commission to monitor closely the concrete measures implemented by Member States to support entrepreneurship among young people, to devote special attention to the promotion and publication of information on results, and to encourage and support institutions and organisations in exchanging good practices, sharing ideas, knowledge and experience and forming cross-sectoral strategic partnerships; encourages the Commission and the Member States to develop benchmarks, models and common instruments and projects in order to promote youth entrepreneurship;

43.  Urges the Commission to ensure that no measures taken by the Member States impede the free movement of workers, so that young people who have chosen business careers are able to conduct their activities wherever they wish to in the European Union;

Role of the Member States

44.  Calls on the Member States, as well as regional and local authorities, to endeavour to promote the development of training for launching and managing start-ups, including expert mentorship, incubators and accelerators, social enterprise projects working with local communities, and all entrepreneurship-friendly environments which will facilitate young people’s start-ups and enable quick recovery in the event of dropping out of school or from initial failures, thereby helping to create a positive business culture, prevent negative perception of business failure and encourage reattempt, with, additionally, special attention being paid to reaching out to disadvantaged young people;

45.  Urges the Member States to ensure that our young entrepreneurs have the access to finance that they require and that they are supported at every stage;

46.  Calls on the Member States, as well as regional and local authorities, to make use of the resources of the EU Structural Funds, in particular the European Social Fund, to the full in order to promote entrepreneurship education and training and the development of digital skills at national, regional and local level;

47.  Calls on the Member States, together with regional and local authorities, to use all existing EU-level funding resources, such as the European Social Fund, the European Youth Employment Initiative, the EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI), the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme and the EU programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (COSME), to encourage and support initiatives which pursue more effective and better-targeted links between businesses and the education sector;

48.  Calls on the Member States to foster sharing of best practice, encourage both domestic and cross-border partnerships, and support fledgling enterprises and the work of relevant small and medium enterprises networks and development agencies;

49.  Encourages the Member States to provide specific innovative methods to train teachers and mentors in entrepreneurship so as to enable them to foster and encourage entrepreneurial skills, and to consider including entrepreneurship as part of the educational curriculum;

50.  Calls on the Member States to further develop their systems for the recognition and validation of competences acquired in non-formal and informal learning so that their commitment for 2018 is respected, in order to give individuals reorientation and second chance opportunities, as well as boosting self-recognition and further learning;

51.  Calls on the Member States to encourage the involvement of private partners in entrepreneurship education, through funding or providing training, as an aspect of their corporate social responsibility;

52.  Calls on the Member States to eliminate bureaucracy regarding the implementation of business plans by young people, and to consider tax relief measures and measures to encourage them to create their own business ideas; stresses the need for safety valves for start-ups that fail;

53.  Stresses the need to address the financial difficulties affecting young entrepreneurs, to facilitate their access to credit and special grants, to reduce existing administrative burdens, and to put in place a regulatory environment and fiscal incentives that encourage the development of youth entrepreneurial initiatives and boost job creation, in order to facilitate the start-up and stabilisation of young entrepreneurs’ business projects;

54.  Calls on the Member States to be proactive in improving regulatory frameworks and streamlining administrative procedures for businesses, in particular SMEs and social enterprises, and to promote and monitor the quality of the employment practices of such businesses; points out that social and inclusive businesses create sustainable jobs, contribute to community development, and help promote a sustainable environment and ensure social resilience in times of crisis;

55.  Calls for public employment services to be more proactive in providing assistance and advice to businesses, and to young entrepreneurs in particular;

56.  Calls on the Member States, and regional and local authorities, to offer innovative students increased access to scholarships and micro-loan schemes, together with support, information, mentoring, multidisciplinary assistance and peer‑to‑peer evaluation platforms, in order to enable them to start their own ventures or projects, such as those supported under the Microfinance and Social Entrepreneurship axis of EaSI; calls on the Member States to facilitate access to and return of loans, to promote the use of crowdfunding, to develop partnerships between the local economy, businesses and universities, to enhance the role of businesses in integrating young people into the labour market, and to consolidate the entrepreneurial skills pass (ENP) at various levels of school and university education, especially in partnership with SMEs; urges the Member States to encourage the establishment within universities of business incubators dedicated to sustainable development and future-oriented branches of study;

57.  Calls on the Member States to simplify procedures for non-fraudulent exits and to create a supportive exit environment, so as to send young people a clear message that a failure will not result in a setback with lifelong consequences;

58.  Calls on the Member States to encourage young people into entrepreneurship by facilitating project-based studies within the education system which cut across disciplines and are delivered in cooperation with companies;

59.  Calls on the Member States to promote entrepreneurship as a positive career option in the career advice provided within secondary and tertiary education, and to tackle the negative stigma surrounding entrepreneurship as a career option which is prevalent in some Member States;

60.  Calls on the Member States to increase awareness of self-employment and business creation for young people with disabilities, through actions such as promoting the career paths of people with disabilities who have already been integrated into the labour market and giving public recognition to entrepreneurs with disabilities;

Subsequent follow-up steps

61.  Urges the Commission to follow up and further develop its work on Entrepreneurship360 (Schools and VET) and on HEInnovate (higher education);

62.  Calls on the Commission to include measures related to entrepreneurship education into the European Semester evaluation indicators, starting in 2016;

63.  Calls on the Commission to submit an evaluation report to Parliament by the end of its term on the progress achieved in promoting youth entrepreneurship through education and training and how much it managed to reach out to members of vulnerable social groups;

64.  Calls on the Commission to ensure coordination and cooperation at European level in the systematic evaluation of the entrepreneurship programmes and activities in order to allow the comparability of results – for instance. to compare the different patterns of youth entrepreneurship across Member States and the characteristics of youth entrepreneurs in terms of socio-demographic variables such as age, gender and education;

65.  Calls on the Commission to promote cooperation on policies across the EU and invite Member States to engage in exchanges of good practices;

o
o   o

66.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments of the Member States and the EEA countries, and the Council of Europe.

(1) OJ C 17, 20.1.2015, p. 2. (2) OJ C 183, 14.6.2014, p. 18. (3) OJ C 119, 28.5.2009, p. 2. (4) OJ C 120, 26.4.2013, p. 1. (5) OJ C 398, 22.12.2012, p. 1. (6) OJ C 199, 7.7.2011, p. 1. (7) OJ C 311, 19.12.2009, p. 1. (8) OJ L 394, 30.12.2006, p. 10. (9) Texts adopted, P8_TA(2015)0107. (10) OJ C 353 E, 3.12.2013, p. 56. (11) OJ C 165 E, 11.6.2013, p. 7. (12) OJ C 377 E, 7.12.2012, p. 89. (13) OJ C 161 E, 31.5.2011, p. 8. (14) OJ C 45 E, 23.2.2010, p. 33. (15) Commission Report on Progress on equality between women and men in 2013 (SWD(2014)0142), Commission Publication on Statistical Data on Women Entrepreneurs in Europe, September 2014. (16) Budapest and Istanbul, European Training Foundation symposium – conclusions. (17) Commission: Eurobarometer FL354, ‘Entrepreneurship in the EU and beyond’, 9 January 2013.