Mariya Gabriel, Nicolas Schmit and Thierry Breton, the European Commissioners responsible for Education, Employment and Industrial Policy respectively, organised a new round table on Monday 12 April on the ‘European Pact for Skills’, this time bringing together representatives from the “cultural and creative sectors”.
Among them were university lecturers and representatives of organisations such as the Copenhagen Film Fund and the President of the European Broadcasting Union, Delphine Ernotte.
The aim of the ‘European Pact for Skills’, initiated under the new European skills strategy (see EUROPE 12518/1), is to mobilise and bring together different actors to invest in the training of people of working age in the EU.
In this respect, the Pact provides for the implementation of “European skills partnerships”.
These partnerships should bring together teachers, social partners, sectoral organisations, public authorities and public or private employment services in a given “industrial ecosystem”. So far, the Commission has launched three initial partnerships in the fields of automotive manufacturing, microelectronics, and aerospace and defence.
At the round table on Monday, the creative and cultural sectors were also “identified as an important industrial ecosystem that could form a large-scale skills partnership under the pact”, the Commission reports.
Nothing official, therefore, for the moment. But the idea has been launched and is justified by the “serious consequences of the pandemic on these industries”, the “digital transformation” they are facing, and their “impact on other ecosystems such as tourism”, according to the European institution. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)