3. European voluntary service

The opportunity to progress from a national, compulsory, male-only military service to a transnational, mixed gender, voluntary civil service is another great advantage of the European project.
In France, Spain, Poland, Italy and lately Kosovo - one country after another - Europe seems to be moving away from the idea of compulsory national military service. We are currently seeing fewer and fewer young people having to present themselves for a compulsory conscription period.
We have reached the right moment to launch discussions on defining the outlines of a transnational mixed, voluntary civil service.

The current European voluntary service, which has been around for about 20 years, remains mostly confidential. As the idea is still rather new, “learning by doing” seems to sum up its current approach. The needs for the service are huge. Considering the ever growing number of our citizens suffering from various handicaps (linked to car accidents for example) and the support required by single-parent families, European companies have moved ahead independently, without finding new ways to bring about solidarity. The creation of a new European civil service could be part of the solution, considering the social, environmental and cultural issues that we face. Admittedly, at this stage, we are not even aware of all the different projects that deserve its attention.
Indeed, the 4000 young people (out the 100 million people aged 15-29 in the European Union) who take part in the project each year are pioneers. To enable this project to move forward, the distribution of 10000 grants for the volunteers by 2014 is therefore a necessity.

It is necessary to mention that not all the decisions will be taken by the European Union, which is good news. The idea is to show to different member states, many of which have opted to keep their own civil service, the different ways in which they can include or promote a European dimension within it.

Jugme Singye Wangchuck, former king of Bhutan, coined the term Gross National Happiness in 1972, as a suggestion of a way to define his people's standard of living in less materialistic expressions than the Gross national product. Perhaps Europe could introduce the calculation of Gross Transnational Happiness?