(16b) The recognition of volunteering as an appropriate activity through which to acquire competences and skills, e.g. through YOUTHPASS with a linkage to EUROPASS, will ensure that volunteering is not seen as an alternative to formal training but a complement to it and furthermore it will facilitate the mobility of volunteers.

25. Notes that ADR mechanisms often depend on the trader's willingness to cooperate, and believes that the availability of an effective judicial redress system would act as a strong incentive for parties to agree an out-of-court settlement, which is likely to avoid a considerable amount of litigation; encourages the setting-up of ADR schemes at European level so as to allow fast and cheap settlement of disputes as a more attractive option than court proceedings, and suggests that judges performing the preliminary admissibility check for a collective action should also have the power to order the parties involved to first seek a collecti ...[+++]ve consensual resolution of the claim before launching collective court proceedings; believes that the criteria developed by the Court should be the starting point for the establishment of this power; stresses, however, that these mechanisms should remain, as the name indicates, merely an alternative to judicial redress, not a precondition therefor;

23. Supports the development of strong EU-wide alternative dispute resolution mechanisms as voluntary, quick and low-cost extra-judicial dispute settlement procedures, as well as of self-regulatory instruments such as codes of conduct; stresses, however, that these mechanisms should remain, as the name indicates, merely an alternative to judicial redress, not a precondition;

You say that “companies in our sector have a simple choice: they can break the laws and sacrifice safety, or they can go out of business”.

In your letter of March 13, page 2, item 7, you said, “Companies in our sector have a simple choice: they can break the laws and sacrifice safety, or they can go out of business”.

' It is, of course, much more complicated than just alternating between depression and elation.