At the end of the first day of the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council on Thursday 27 November, the EU Member States were unable to adopt the resolution on the second cycle of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (2026-2030). Hungary’s opposition prevented the consensus required for the resolution to be adopted.
In the text, Budapest is opposed to the target set for the international mobility of students in the EU. During the public session on this subject on Thursday 27 November, the Hungarian Minister for Culture, Balázs Hankó, explained that the European Commission had been excluding Hungarian students from the Erasmus+ programme since 2022 with its sanctions targeting 21 Hungarian universities.
Without mentioning the very objective of international mobility formulated in the resolution, Mr Hankó criticised the European Commission’s decisions to maintain the sanctions in place despite Hungary’s reform proposals. This observation has led the Minister, “out of a sense of moral duty”, not to approve the draft resolution, he said.
The draft resolution sets a target of 23% of higher education graduates with experience of mobility abroad.
On other subjects, this text revises the strategic priorities adopted in 2021. Six new priorities have been identified. They relate to literacy levels, digital skills, the attractiveness of teaching professions and continuing education objectives.
The resolution also sets quantified targets at EU level to achieve the objectives set, following the example of the resolution on international mobility. Another example concerns the proportion of 15-year-olds with poor reading, mathematical and scientific skills, which should not exceed 15%.
Less than 8% of pupils should be early school leavers, and at least 47% of 25-34 year-olds should have completed higher education.
See the resolution: https://aeur.eu/f/jp7 (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)