Brussels, 08/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament has welcomed the Commission's intention to address the EU's shortcomings on citizen's basic skills. In the plenary session debate on Tuesday 17 June, however, several MEPs were somewhat sceptical in light, they said, of the lack of impact of previous strategies.
The European Commission will present its New Skills Agenda for Europe on 10 June. At the plenary session on 7 June, Commissioner Marianne Thyssen (Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility) said that the goal of the initiative is to raise the level of basic skills (literacy, numeracy and digital skills) among European citizens. She told MEPs that this was in the interest of the economy and of individuals. The strategy, she said, was aimed at young and not so young people, those in work and those without.
Generally, MEPs welcomed the initiative, given the current high level of unemployment. Comments, however, remained relatively broad, the strategy having yet to be published. Jean Lambert (Greens/EFA, UK), for example, called for gender to be reflected in the strategy while Zdzislaw Krasnodesbski (ECR, Poland) called for account to taken, too, of the over-qualified who struggle to find employment. David Casa (EPP, Malta) welcomed the emphasis placed on vocational rather than university qualifications.
Nonetheless, a number of MEPs were critical. Laura Agea (EFDD, Italy) brought up the Commission's former strategy, Agenda for New Skills and Jobs: a European Contribution towards Full Employment, published in 2010 as part of the EUROPE 2020 strategy. The objective at the time was to lift the rate employment among 20 to 64 year-olds to 75% by 2008. “The only mobility we are seeing today is the brain drain”, she railed. “There is currently a lack of investment in education as a result of budget cuts. In future, free access to training has to be guaranteed, vocational training encouraged and life-long learning ever more deeply embedded”, argued more generally Jutta Steinbruck (S&D, Germany).
As reported in EUROPE 11566, the New Skills Agenda for Europe will focus, inter alia, on a basic skills guarantee, revision of the European qualifications framework (EQF), a tool box for third-country nationals and a blueprint for cooperation on skills in specific economic sectors. The Commission will also announce other initiatives for 2016 (such as revision of the Europass framework) and 2017 (revision of the key competences framework). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)