Brussels, 15/07/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Commission adopted proposals for the next generation of programmes in the fields of culture, youth, audiovisuals and culture. These programmes will take over from the current programmes for the period 2007-2013, and all have highly ambitious contents, in the aim of working towards the Lisbon objective of making Europe the most competitive knowledge-based economy by 2010. The proposals are part of the budgetary package adopted this week by the Commission (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.10), and aim to increase the planned share of the sector from 0.9% currently to nearly 2%. The Commission now hopes that the Council and the EP will share its position and adopt its proposals before the end of 2005. The four programmes proposed are:
1) Integrated life-long education and training programme. With a budget of 13.6 billion EUR over 7 years, the new programme intends to contribute to improve the quality of education and training systems. It is sub-divided into four sectorial programmes: the first will focus on school teaching (Comenius), the second on higher education (Erasmus), the third on vocational training (Leonardo Da Vinci), and the fourth on adult teaching (Grundtvig). The EU has set itself the objective: of getting at least one in twenty pupils involved in the Comenius programme; hitting the target of 3 million Erasmus students since the start of the programme by 2011; increasing to 150,000 the number of business placements on the Leonardo Da Vinci programme by 2013, and helping some 25,000 adults a year to benefit from training or mobility under Grundtvig by 2013.
2) "Youth in Action". This programme, which aims to develop a sense of personal responsibility, a sense of initiative and solidarity in young people and to improve support systems to youth activities, will have a budget of 915 million EUR and will be simpler in its functioning than the previous system. It will be accessible to young people of 13 to 30 in the Member States and third countries. It will consist of various actions such as youth exchanges, the "European Voluntary Service" and "Youth for the World".
3) MEDIA 2007. This will take over from the existing "Media Plus" and "Media Formation" programmes, and will have a budgetary envelope of 1.055 billion EUR. It is a symbol of the EU's deep commitment to the audiovisual sector, which has been confirmed in the major role it plays in the construction of a shared European identity. Community action will relate to the pre-production (for example, by supporting training for jobs in the sector, or by facilitating SMEs' access to funding), and post-production phases (support to the distribution and promotion of audiovisual works, and improved distribution of cinematographic works).
4) Culture 2007. The main objectives of this programme, the successor to "Culture 2000", are to promote the trans-national mobility of artists and works of art, and to encourage inter-cultural dialogue (supplementing action in the Member States). A little over 400 million EUR will be devoted to this programme.
"Mission accomplished" said Viviane Reding, presenting the decision to the press on Thursday, together with Lithuanian Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite. "A few years ago, I would never have dared to dream of such an accumulation of agreements, money and opportunities", said Ms Reding. However, the Commissioner agreed that the percentage of the Community budget given over to her sector remains on the low side, given all the initiatives in it has to support. Ms Grybauskaite stressed that Community expenditure would go on strictly European projects to accompany, in terms of "added value", initiatives taken and national, region and local level.