The European Parliament is ready to begin negotiations with the Council of Europe over the review of the ‘Europass’ system of skills and certification.
In a resolution passed on Thursday 22 June, the European Parliament’s culture, employment and social affairs committees stress the need to foresee a transparent, interoperable system.
Unveiled last autumn, the proposed review of Decision 2241/2009 aims to update the Europass system so that it better matches current needs for more detailed, up-to-date, user-friendly and interoperable information (see EUROPE 11638). It wants to make it possible to adjust the system to future changes in needs.
The legislative resolution by Thomas Mann (EPP, Germany) and Svetoslav Hristov Malinov (EPP, Bulgaria) fleshes out the definition of the Europass online portal to make it more inclusive. It stipulates that the various aspects of the system should be accessible online and use open standards to ensure transparency and mutual understanding of skills and qualifications.
Among other amendments, the MEPs suggest delaying introduction of the European classification for skills, certificates and professions (ESCO) - that aims to ensure semantic interoperability among documentation of information tools – to ensure the classification is tested and endorsed by the member states in advance. They also stress the importance of protecting privacy.
New skills strategy. The two Parliament committees endorsed a non-legislative resolution on the strategy for new skills in Europe (see EUROPE 11566).
Drawn up by Martina Dlabajová (ALDE, Czech Republic) and Momchil Nekov (S&D, Bulgaria), the resolution says that the strategy must not focus solely on skills relating to employability, voluntary work, negotiating, governance and foreign language skills, but that there should also be investment in informal and non-formal programmes, professional training and life-long learning. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)