This international review of Hungarian national youth policy is the fifteenth in the series started in 1997 by the Directorate of Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe. Like preceding reviews, it aims to fulfil three distinct objectives: - to advise on national youth policy; - to identify components which might combine to form a harmonised approach to youth policy across Europe; and - to contribute to a learning process in relation to the development and implementation of youth policy. Hungary, at its own request, embarked on an international review to benefit from ten years of reviewing experience and to contribute to the European exchange of information on youth policies. This report includes information gathered by the international review team as well as its analyses and recommendations concerning the development, perspectives and challenges for the future of youth policy in Hungary.

A better understanding of youth work’s historical links with social work can help us to shape its relationship with social work in the future. This sixth publication in the History of Youth Work in Europe project based on the workshop held in Malta – Connections, Disconnections and Reconnections: The Social Dimension of Youth Work, in History and Today – looks at the relationship between youth work and social work and the role youth work can play in the social inclusion of young people. Contributors have reflected on concepts, tools and support measures for more vulnerable and often socially excluded young people and have sought to promote a common understanding of youth work as a social practice. The workshop that led to this book sought to understand where youth work has positioned itself from its origins, through its development, to its contemporary identity. Is youth work as much a social practice as a non-formal educational one? Where does the balance between these two dimensions lie? What are the mutually enriching dimensions of these two fields in terms of their impact on young people’s lives? While most agree that youth work needs to be further defined as a practice or profession in itself and that the process of shaping its identity continues in different ways in different countries, it is clear that when it comes to a cross-sectoral perspective and youth work’s interaction with social work, the picture becomes significantly more complex, arguably much richer and certainly more dynamic than might have hitherto been foreseen.

Unemployment levels are on the rise nearly everywhere, and the rate is particularly high among young people. If this trend is not reversed, the potential long-term economic and social damage is incalculable. For this reason a particular urgency attended an international conference on the subject held in March 2009 at the Marco Biagi Foundation in Modena, Italy, in the course of which specialists in labour law, human resources management, labour economics, sociology, education, and statistics met to present and compare research. This issue of the Bulletin of Comparative Labour Relations includes a selection of the papers presented at that conference. Although the selected essays present findings on specific issues in particular countries, the general applicability at the global level is evident. Assessing measures taken to deal with youth unemployment in thirteen countries (Italy, Spain, Russia, Sweden, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Israel, Nigeria, the United States, China, and Singapore), twenty-five leading authorities describe and analyse such aspects of the problem as the following: vocational education and training; quality of employment as well as quantity; links between educational institutions and local, national and international enterprises; consultation and co-operation between employers' associations and trade unions; job security vs. employment security; funding for postgraduate programmes, internships, and on-the-job vocational training; career development for future managers; safeguards for workers in a framework of flexibility; labour market pressure from unskilled immigrant workers; 'earn-as-you-learn' schemes; work in the informal economy; and the rationale behind the phasing out of passive labour market measures for school leavers such as unemployment benefits.

This is the 12th in a series of country reviews carried by an international panel of experts appointed by the Council of Europe with recommendations concerning the development, perspectives and challenges for the future of youth policy in the Slovak Republic. This review process has been established to help contribute to a learning process in relation to the development and implementation of youth policy and to identify key aspects of a harmonised approach to youth policies across Europe.

The European Youth Centres (EYCs) in Strasbourg and Budapest were established to implement the Council of Europe's youth policy by providing international training and meeting centres with residential facilities. The Budapest centre was set up in 1995 as the first permanent service of the Council of Europe in a Central and Eastern European country. This publication contains contributions from a variety of people from different age groups and a wide spectrum of political, cultural and social life in Europe who have had some involvement with the Budapest centre, whether in a political or professional function, through work or voluntary commitment to civil society past or present.

Ukraine is the 19th country overall, and the third of the Commonwealth of independent States (following Armenia and Moldova) to have its youth policy reviewed by the Council of Europe's international review team. Ukraine presented a range of new challenges: it was by far the largest country geographically and it embodied geo-political characteristics (from North to South, and East to West) that are reflected in its philosophy and approach to youth policy development. This international review explores three issues of particular interest to the Ukrainian authorities: health and healthy lifestyles, employment and employability, and patriotic education and citizenship, in addition, the international review pays special attention to questions of youth participation and engagement, and to those groups of "vulnerable" young people who are at most risk of social exclusion. The review argues for the establishment of a more open development model for youth policy in Ukraine, supported by a clear strategic vision and the strengthening of its commitment to local capacity and autonomy in shaping relevant programmes and projects, in particular, it also advocates the promotion of more diverse methodologies in the implementation of youth policy, based on non-formal learning and skills-development principles.

The EU-CoE youth partnership stems from the close relations that the Council of Europe and the European Commission have developed in the youth field over the years since 1998. The overall goal is to foster synergies between the youth-oriented activities of the two institutions. The specific themes are participation/citizenship, social inclusion, recognition and quality of youth work. What is youth policy, and what major elements should a national youth policy strategy include? How can young people be consulted and otherwise involved in developing youth policy? How do institutions such as the European Union, the Council of Europe and the United Nations address youth policy, and how can this work be concretely linked to the efforts of a national government to develop a youth policy agenda? How is youth policy organised in specific countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region? These are some of the essential questions addressed in this publication. The Youth policy manual should be considered a source work, a tool and a helpful guide both for policy makers in the youth field and for non-governmental organisations and other stakeholder groups who advocate improved youth policy at the national level. This manual proposes one possible model for how a national youth policy strategy can be developed. It is a revised version of the Youth policy manual (2009) and takes into account relevant specificities of the MENA region.