Pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 375/2014, the Commission should establish both standards and procedures covering the necessary conditions, arrangements and requirements to be applied by sending and hosting organisations when identifying, selecting, preparing, managing and deploying candidate volunteers and EU Aid Volunteers to support humanitarian aid in third countries. Regulation (EU) No 375/2014 provides for these standards to be adopted through delegated acts and the procedures to be adopted through implementing acts.

All stakeholders of the EU Aid Volunteers initiative, including the volunteers themselves and the sending and hosting organisations, should be encouraged to share a sense of identity in the initiative.

The competence framework to be used for the EU Aid Volunteers initiative must define transversal competences required in many sectors of volunteering and employment, and also set out the specific competences needed for the EU Aid Volunteers initiative and for working in humanitarian aid. It should also give a non-exhaustive list of the technical competences. That should help to ensure effective and needs-based selection and preparation of candidate volunteers, on the basis of a common competence framework.

In order for the competences, learning needs and outcomes of the EU Aid Volunteers to be documented and assessed, they should follow an easy-to-use learning and development plan throughout their participation in the initiative. The design of this plan will be based on lessons learnt from the Youth Pass2 and Europass3 initiatives.

Participation in the EU Aid Volunteers initiative can improve volunteers' employability, as a result of the knowledge, skills and competences they acquire. It also demonstrates their solidarity with people in need and their commitment to visibly promoting a sense of European citizenship. Specific provisions should therefore facilitate, to the extent possible, the validation of non-formal and informal learning undertaken by EU Aid Volunteers, in accordance with the Council Recommendation of 20 December 2012 on the validation of non-formal and informal learning4.

The standards governing the partnerships between sending and hosting organisations are of relevance for both the humanitarian sector and for volunteer organisations. They support the objective of building partnerships between the implementing organisations and reflect the mutual responsibility of these organisations both for achieving the objectives of the EU Aid Volunteers initiative and for the EU Aid Volunteers as individuals. The principles on which the partnership is based need to be defined and the partnership agreement should meet minimum requirements in order for the partners to be able to apply for and manage projects involving the deployment of EU Aid Volunteers in third countries.

Principles relating to equal opportunities and non-discrimination are enshrined in national and Union legislation and should always be respected and promoted by the sending and hosting organisations. Provision is made, however, for context-specific exceptions, where necessary, relating to the definition of the role and profile of the EU Aid Volunteers.

Compliance with relevant national and Union law and with the law of the hosting country is of paramount importance. This is the responsibility of sending and hosting organisations, which are also obliged to inform EU Aid Volunteers of their rights and legal obligations deriving from that legislation and their right to insurance coverage. A clear legal status of the volunteers is a pre-condition for their deployment and should be therefore defined in a deployment contract between the sending organisations and the EU Aid Volunteer. Specific attention should also be given to the protection of personal data, to the need to act with integrity, in accordance with a code of conduct, and to the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults, including by establishing a principle of zero-tolerance to sexual abuse.

In order to ensure a timely implementation of the EU Aid Volunteers initiative, it is necessary for this Regulation to enter into force as an urgent matter as it sets the provisions based on which implementing organisations to deploy EU Aid Volunteers in third countries,