Duitse minister van Onderwijs spreekt de Commissie Cultuur en Onderwijs (CULT) toe over onderwijsbeleid (en)

Mr. Chairman,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me to be able to present to you the priorities of the German Council Presidency in the area of education.

Fifty years have passed since the Treaties of Rome were signed. Unparalleled progress has been made over the past five decades: Economic growth, stability and prosperity as well as peace, freedom and justice in everyday life are just a few of our achievements. The European process of unification is a very fortunate development which we owe to the far-sighted and generous commitment of outstanding personalities. The European way of life is a special achievement which many in the world would be glad to enjoy.

Europe was not created on one day. It had time to grow. And Europe and its citizens will need more time in the future. Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the American writer and Nobel Prize winner T. S. Eliot commented as follows on the rebuilding of Europe, which lay in ruins: "You cannot build a tree, you can only plant it, and care for it, and wait for it to mature in its due time".

Today, fifty years after the signing of the Treaties of Rome, Europe is facing major challenges. I want to mention just three of them:

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  We must agree on common objectives and values.
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  We must firmly continue the constitutional process, and
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  We must strengthen the economic, social and political cohesion between the member states.

The development of the European Union will mainly depend on how we address the issues of education and research, innovation and technology. They are the sources of future prosperity. They are the basic prerequisite for implementing the Lisbon Strategy.

Growth and employment in our global knowledge society depend on innovation and progress. The key to future opportunities for every individual and also for society as a whole is education, training and lifelong learning. More than ever we must now join forces, pool our resources and creativity and contribute to a positive development by means of education and research.

According to the Gago Report, Europe needs an additional 700,000 researchers in order to meet the three percent target of the Lisbon Strategy. Talented young people opt too rarely for a career in research or, if they do so, abandon it because of unfavourable framework conditions, which include inadequate investments in research.

This has an impact on people's chances in life, on the performance of our research institutions, universities and laboratories, on investments and the establishment of companies and, last but not least, on Europe's overall sustainability and viability.

This is the basis on which we must act. We must improve mobility and transfer between universities, research institutions and companies. And we must focus in particular on international mobility - within the EU and also beyond - in view of growing globalization and in order to secure Europe's competitiveness.

Education, training and lifelong learning are of key importance in this connection. The individual life chances of all European citizens taken together are vital for the competitiveness of the European economy. And education, training and lifelong learning also play a central role in societal integration processes.

We need tolerance to achieve this goal. And we need an understanding of cultural variety in Europe. Such understanding and tolerance can only be fostered by education.

And it is education, training and lifelong learning which promote a common understanding of democracy, the rule of law and values as a basis on which the member states can grow together.

"We are not uniting states, we are uniting people", as Jean Monnet once said. With this mission in mind and pursuing the education policy goals I have just described, the German Council Presidency will strive to promote the central topics of European education cooperation.

Before presenting our detailed programme for the next six months, I would like to say how pleased I am that the Lifelong Learning Programme has been adopted. The programme started as planned on 1 January 2007, that is, in the year in which we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Erasmus Programme.

As you know, the Erasmus Programme is among the most renowned and successful European initiatives; it has already benefitted more than one and a half million university students, teachers and researchers.

Together with the programmes for school education, vocational training and adult education - Comenius, Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig - it is now part of the new, integrated Lifelong Learning Programme.

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This new programme for the promotion of lifelong learning, which is equipped with almost seven billion euro, will contribute to developing Europe into a modern knowledge economy. It demonstrates in an exemplary manner that much can be achieved by joint action at European level. This programme will be officially launched at a European conference in Berlin on 6 and 7 May 2007, which is jointly organized by the Council Presidency and the Commission.

We know what we want to achieve: the Lisbon objective of making Europe the most innovative knowledge-based economy in the world. We must therefore modernize higher education in Europe. Only then will universities be able to contribute their share to European innovation efforts. Our universities have enormous potential.

We need profound and coordinated changes in the higher education systems if we are to be able to make good use of these large knowledge and skills resources. What is at stake is not only the way in which the systems are monitored and managed but also the way in which the institutions of higher education are financed and governed.

The European Council has regularly invited the member states at its summit meetings to actively engage in the promotion of top-class performance by their universities, support closer relations between universities and industry and speed up innovation and modernization in higher education. This will remain a focus of our work under the German Presidency.

A good example of close cooperation between the member states and beyond is the Bologna Process. Now, 45 countries from all over Europe are participating in the Proces. Considerable progress has been made in this field. During the German Council Presidency, the next meeting of the Bologna states will take place in London on 16 and 17 May 2007.

The London Conference will discuss further steps which need to be taken to establish a European Higher Education Area, including greater autonomy for universities and higher education finance. Another topic to be addressed by the London Conference is increasing cooperation with countries which are not yet involved in the Bologna Process.

Within the framework of the Bologna Process, a European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) has been successfully developed for higher education to increase the mobility of university students. We should now start to develop a similar credit system for vocational education and training.

We all agree that efforts must be made to enhance the transparency, comparability and recognition of skills and qualifications and their transferability between different countries and levels. This was also acknowledged within the framework of the Copenhagen Process for education and training, which accompanies the Bologna Process.

An important topic in this context is the European Qualifications Framework. This instrument not only promotes transborder mobility and transparency but also offers a translation tool which enables all the stakeholders to classify and compare learning outcomes more easily at European and national level.

The aim is to ensure that the European Qualifications Framework covers the full range of education and training, from formal to non-formal learning, from training qualifications to doctoral degrees and vocational skills. The European Qualifications Framework is thus of special importance not only for higher education but also for vocational education and training.

After extensive consultations with all stakeholders, the Commission presented a proposal for a European Qualifications Framework last September.

In November the Council adopted a position largely along the lines of the Commission proposal. We are now eager to know the Parliament's views.

In their Communiqué on Enhanced European Cooperation in Vocational Education and Training, the European Education Ministers meeting in Helsinki recently confirmed the importance of vocational education and training for Europe's competitiveness.

In the field of vocational education and training, the Presidency therefore focusses on further steps to develop a European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET). Mobility in the area of vocational training is still largely insufficient compared with higher education. A credit system can remove obstacles to mobility which still prevent trainees from going abroad.

Consultations on the proposed ECVET credit system - which is to complement the European Qualifications Framework I have just mentioned - are well under way. We expect that the results of this consultation process will be available in spring 2007.

They will be discussed at a European vocational training conference entitled "Realizing the European Learning Area" to be held in Munich on 4 and 5 June 2007.

On the basis of all the information collected, the Commission will then draft proposals for a future-oriented Community instrument, which will be submitted to the Parliament and the Council for consideration.

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The Education Council has an ambitious agenda for the next few months. The main topics of the Ministerial Conference in Heidelberg in early March will be

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  adult learning,
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  the importance of education for common European values, and
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  early childhood education.

Furthermore the Presidency is planning the adoption of key messages to the European Council of Heads of State and Government in spring 2007. These messages will in particular stress the central importance which education and training have for achieving the Lisbon objectives.

Last but not least, I would like to emphasize that I very much look foward to continuing the close and very good cooperation with the European Parliament. In recent years, education and training has regularly been a topic on the political agenda both at national level and at European level within the framework of the Lisbon Strategy.

Close cooperation between the European organs - Parliament, Council and Commission - is of increasing importance. The German Presidency will make every effort to continue the successful cooperation with the Parliament and the Commission.

Close and productive cooperation between our institutions in matters of education are becoming ever more important in view of the challenges we are facing today and those we will be facing in the future.

As Aristotle is said to have remarked: "Education is the best provision for the journey to old age". And Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, once said: "We cannot stand still when the world around us is moving".

Fifty years after the establishment of the European Communities, the EU is now on a good path. It is up to us to set Europe in motion in order to enhance growth and employment by means of education and research. The German Council Presidency will make its contribution towards achieving this goal.

Thank you.

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