The bus de la mobilité left Paris on 22 September. It’s the culminating event of an itinerant promotional campaign linked to the “European Circuit of professional mobility”. Before completing its journey in front of the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels on 19 October, the 15-metre-long bus will have travelled through a further seven European cities (Kiel, Helsinki, Riga, Warsaw, Prague, Pecs and Milan): during its stops in each, a series of events are planned, aimed at heightening the awareness of the authorities and the population to the question of worker mobility, a theme to which Europe has devoted 2006. In particular, the bus “will inform visitors of the numerous job vacancies that can be consulted on the portal of the Commission Eures and encourage citizens to work in another country of the Union”. EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs Vladimir Spidla has said that “thanks to this initiative millions of European citizens will be able to gain direct access in their own language to over a million job vacancies”. The usefulness of the project was also confirmed by the success of the first European Employment Exchange, held simultaneously in over 250 cities on 29-30 September, during which the most requested information was that relating to living conditions and work opportunities abroad.
