MEPs call for new voluntary ethos

The report, prepared by Irish Liberal Marian Harkin, is called "The role of volunteering in contributing to economic and social cohesion" and suggests the following:
 
EU members, regional and local authorities and voluntary organisations should be encouraged to develop plans to recognise, value, support, facilitate and encourage volunteering, and to work in partnership to do so. It also urges help to voluntary bodies to access sufficient and sustainable funding, without excessive red tape or bureaucracy, while maintaining controls on public expenditure.
 
Private sector can play a role
 
The report seeks to encourage companies and other private-sector operators, as part of their corporate social responsibility strategy, to financially support initiatives promoting and enhancing volunteering. Finally it recommends that 2011 be declared the European Year of Volunteering.
 
Speaking about her report, Marian Harkin said that "we need to ensure European policies recognise and support volunteers in their valuable work. Furthermore for every €1 organisations spent on supporting volunteers they received an average return worth between €3 and €8". Stressing the wider benefits she said that "there is a strong link between volunteering and active citizenship...involvement in voluntary activities is a tangible expression of participatory democracy".