There exist many situations in which markets fail at ensuring minimum quality levels. They are often addressed by measures to increase the transparency of the market, or by a regulation imposing minimum standards.

Given the link between lack of transparency, market failure, and low quality, the policy response should be increasing transparency at all stages. This could mean in practice:

• Simplifying the existing legal framework through appropriate regulatory reforms. A good starting point could be the provision of guidelines from best practice;

• Clarifying the legal framework on traineeships. Fragmented and complicated legal framework on traineeships can lead to a lack of certainty on the legal rights and obligations of trainees and host organisations. This could be done through an effort at providing better quality information through appropriate tools;

• Providing minimum requirements on the learning content and/or on traineeship conditions, either through regulation or via soft law;

• Introducing mechanisms for feedback on the experience from individual traineeships, e.g. through appropriate websites.

Depending on the types of traineeships, actions could be taken at different levels, involving different actors and different tools. The EU could:

• improve the transparency of traineeship regulation through more accessible information;

• encourage voluntary action by stakeholders (host organisations, social partners etc.) to enhance the quality of traineeships, for instance through the establishment of quality labels;

• launch actions under the European employment strategy to encourage Member States to improve the quality of traineeships;

• introduce non-binding instruments (recommendations or guidelines); or

• introduce binding legislation.

It is suggested to stimulate a more structured approach towards internships and establish better governance arrangements by spelling out the contractual status, remuneration; guidance; and the learning outcomes. Unpaid internships can lead – but not necessarily so – to unequal access and the replacement of current employees in the firm. More can be done to guarantee the quality of mentors guiding the interns. It would be useful to start initiatives at EU level to come to an agreement on principles of remuneration involving Social Partners.

Recommendations for internships:

• Schools should support internships by various means – enable internships in the school education programme, take realised (successful) internships as “positive point” in evaluation

• Companies should pay internships longer than one month (at least the national minimum salary); internship positions should be advertised, rather than being filled informally; recruitment processes should be fair and transparent

• Existing programmes (Erasmus + e.g.) should continue in supporting mobility by covering traveling and other types of costs.