The purpose of this Communication is to set out the guidelines for future Community action in the areas of education, training and youth for the period 2000-2006. It paves the way for the legal instruments to be proposed in the spring of 1998, with the relevant decisions to follow in 1999 and entry into force on 1 January 2000.
Noting that we are now entering the "knowledge society", the Commission in its Agenda 2000 proposes making the policies which drive that society (innovation, research, education and training) one of the four fundamental pillars of the Union's internal policies. This process is directly linked to the aim of developing lifelong learning which the Union has set itself and which has been incorporated into the Amsterdam Treaty, expressing the determination of the Union to promote the highest level of knowledge for its people through broad access to education and its permanent updating. Policies to restore the employment situation – whether macroeconomic policies or specific labour market action – must be part of an in-depth medium-term strategy to enhance the knowledge and skills of all Europe's citizens.
The new Community activities must capitalise on all these achievements. It is clear that a response must be forthcoming for the strong demand for the continuation of the existing activities, but likewise that proposals must be brought forward for the new generation of activities characterised by:
In more general terms, everything must be done to build that Europe of knowledge which we need in order to face into the twenty-first century.
The gradual construction of an open and dynamic European educational area is the principal guideline on which this Communication is based. In a rapidly-changing world, our societies must offer all citizens greater opportunities for access to knowledge, irrespective of their age or social circumstances. This is why the notion of an educational area needs to be understood in the broadest possible sense, both geographically and temporally. It provides the framework for mobilising the effort to make a reality of the idea of lifelong learning, which was at the heart of the European Year devoted to this theme in 1996. Three dimensions of the European educational area should be emphasized: the citizens of Europe will be able to develop their fund of knowledge, and this area will facilitate an enhancement of citizenship and the development of employability through the acquisition of competencies made necessary through changes in work and its organisation
The very scale of these new challenges calls for a greater degree of integration between the fields of education, training and youth policy. The new generation of actions must focus upon a limited number of objectives:
Six main types of action are envisaged: physical mobility of learners and teachers, virtual mobility and the various uses of new information and communication technologies, the development of cooperation networks at European level, the promotion of language and cultural skills, the development of innovation through pilot projects based on transnational partnerships, the continuing improvement of Community sources of reference with regard to the education, training and youth systems and policies of the Member States.
This policy will be couched in legal instruments based on Articles 126 and 127 of the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC). Common provisions will reflect the will for greater integration:
Three decisions based on Articles 126 and 127 of the Treaty will define the specific framework for actions concerning the domains of education, training and youth. Each of these decisions will include common articles with a view to reinforcing coherence and expressing the will for common action, coordination and disseminating of good practice.
The communication sets out the Commission's intention of raising the visibility of Community action, the contexts in which they operate, and the Union's aims. In order to enhance the visibility and understanding of EU action, and the complementarity and consistency between the various Community policies affecting human resources, evaluation procedures will be improved and rendered more systematic. For the management of day-to-day affairs, the Commission will put forward proposals for decentralisation of decisions to the levels closest to the parties actually concerned. The Commission will propose an improved organisation and distribution of structures for assistance and operational management, and simplification of procedures should lead to more user-friendly access to Community aid.