Brussels, 17/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - In the context of the Spanish EU Presidency, the 6th annual conference of Education Ministers from the EU, the EEA, the candidate countries and South East Europe opened on 16 June in Bratislava (Slovakia) on the theme "Education in the New Millennium". Jointly organised by the European Commission and the Slovak Ministry of Education, it is aimed at presenting common objectives on teaching quality and on access to Europe's systems of education. Spanish Education Minister Pilar del Castillo, his Slovak counterpart, Peter Ponicky, and Education Commissioner Viviane Reding are taking part at the conference, which is along the lines of the objective set by the Lisbon Strategy to make the EU the most competitive knowledge economy in the world over the next decade, and to implement a comprehensive education strategy to this end. Work will focus on the quality of access to education and on access to education systems and formal or non-formal training. Ms Reding will present to the conference the Commission's report on quality indicators regarding lifelong learning. She said she believed that the enlarged Europe should affirm its own model of education and training. She went on to specify that this would be a Europe of education and training in which quality, openness, access, fairness, mobility, transparency and recognition would be a reality.
Ms Reding will on this occasion be holding meetings with the president of the conference and the rectors of the Slovakian universities. The spokesman for Commissioner Christophe Forax noted that about one thousand Slovakian students each year follow the Erasmus programme and that Slovakia welcomes 500 EU students annually under this same programme.