Brussels, 29/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - Gathered under the Presidency of Marleen Vanderpoorten, the Belgian Minister for Education and Training, the EU Education Ministers adopted, on Thursday, a resolution on learning languages, which aims to encourage the study of two foreign languages, and an opinion on the "education" and "training" aspects of the draft guidelines for employment 2002. They also had an exchange of views on the interim report on the future concrete objectives for education and training systems, which should be adopted by the Education Council on 14 February 2002, to pass it on in March to the Barcelona Summit. The Ministers thus insisted for the contribution to the Education Council at the Barcelona Summit to be "very strong" and that certain concrete objectives (such as life long training and mobility, which would be facilitated by the European passport and scholarships) gain greater importance. Moreover, they insisted on coherence with other initiatives such as the European employment strategy, the European education area, the Bologna process, the work by the OECD etc., and they felt that the method of open co-ordination must be adapted to the field of education. Commissioner Viviane Reding presented them the Communication on life-long education and training, adopted last week by the College (this Communication did not raise any reaction from the Ministers on Thursday. This discussion being planned for the Education Council next 14 February) as well as that on cooperation with third countries in terms of higher education and announced the 2004 would be the European Year of education through sport.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the Education Council whose first was under the Belgian Presidency! Same Presidency, same undertaking for this area of knowledge to work, said Mrs Reding to the press. Noting that a major step forward was made since the Lisbon Summit, which called for the establishment of the most competitive and dynamic knowledge society in the world, the Commissioner noted that we are on track towards achieving the 5th pillar - namely the education pillar - from the Barcelona Summit. Thus, she noted, the Education Ministers are now fully in our economic and social policies, and have discussed a method of teaching that works well for everybody, of vocational training and the recognition of diplomas (this concerns a demand from the French delegation). The candidate countries must be deeply involved in this process, and a conference will be organised in Bratislava next June, said Mrs Reding, who recalled that, to establish this continent of knowledge, which must be open to other continents, the Commission had proposed several paths, including dialogue between the civilisations and the extending of the Tempus programme. On this issue, the future Spanish Presidency indicated that it would build bridges between EU and Latin American teachers. This is the right path, which will take us from the bilateral to the multilateral, commented Mrs Reding, who indicated that she would support the creation of centres for educational excellence and Jean Monnet chairs in third countries and encourage the Universities to establish European "Masters" in order to allow for student exchanges. She also detailed: