definition, For example, "work camps" organised to improve intercultural understanding bring together young people from many countries to accomplish a practical task such as building a playground, or restoring a building to be used by the local community. However, the work situation is an artificially created one, there are trained supervisors present, and the group is composed of young people in the same age bracket. Study visits are also excluded: even though they may be in authentic work environments, the participants are merely engaged as onlookers. A definition of the term "placement abroad" is "a shorter or longer period spent abroad in a public or private enterprise, which has been consciously organised for learning purposes, which implies active involvement in concrete work processes, and which can be paid or unpaid". The phenomenon is often associated with past and present programmes of the European Commission. These have grant-aided placements abroad, represent the largest single programmes and initiatives, and provide the best statistical material. Currently, the Leonardo da Vinci programme is much in evidence in discussions on mobility in VET for exactly these reasons. The practice goes well beyond these programmes, however, and encompasses also programmes and initiatives at binational, national and regional level, as well as the activities of organisations and individuals, which are undertaken without any recourse to programme funding. Benefits Placements abroad can be a pedagogical exercise. Mobility in a context of education and training differs substantially from other types of mobility in that it is primarily a pedagogical exercise: it is a tool used to produce certain kinds of learning of an affective and/or cognitive nature in the participant. Placements abroad can be a means for achieving intercultural understanding, learning how to live peacefully together in Europe and in the world and develop a sense of "European Citizenship" as opposed to a strictly nationalist outlook (corresponding to the initial thoughts of Jean Monnet when forging the European Coal and Steel Union in 1951 - as a means to promote peace and understanding in a war-torn Europe). Latterly, this discourse has also been used in connection with the fight against racism and xenophobia. An example refers the activities of the Franco-German Youth Office. Placements abroad can be a method for acquiring ’new basic skills’ and developing ’employability’. The world has changed fundamentally in the last decade. The world is flattening. We can focus on the many differences between apprentices