Building on existing programmes and procedures and with the involvement, if appropriate, of specialised institutions, the Commission shall establish a training programme in order to prepare the candidate volunteers for deployment to support and complement humanitarian aid.

Candidate volunteers who have been identified and selected in accordance with Article 11 shall be eligible to participate in the training programme implemented by qualified organisations. The individual scope and content of the training each candidate volunteer needs to accomplish shall be established by the certified sending organisation concerned, in consultation with the certified hosting organisation, on the basis of needs, taking into account the prior experience of the candidate volunteer and the deployment envisaged.

As part of their training and particularly their preparation for deployment, candidate volunteers may be required to undertake apprenticeship placements in certified sending organisations, where possible in a country other than their country of origin.

Without prejudice to paragraph 3, candidate volunteers who have not benefited from an apprenticeship placement may receive, where appropriate, additional pre-deployment preparation specifically tailored to the needs and special circumstances of the deployment. This preparation and the apprenticeship placement shall comply with the standards and procedures for preparation referred to in Article 9.

The training programme shall include an assessment of the candidate volunteers' readiness to be deployed to support and complement humanitarian aid in third countries, and to meet the local needs. That assessment shall be performed in cooperation with the sending organisations.

The Commission shall adopt the arrangements for the training programme and the procedure for assessing the candidate volunteers' readiness to be deployed by means of implementing acts. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 26(2).