Brussels, 10/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - The Council of the EU will hold its next "Education, Youth and Culture" session under the presidency of British ministers Ruth Kelly, who is in charge of education, and Tessa Jowell, with responsibility for culture, media and sport. The Council is set to reach political agreement on the four action programmes of the Commission: Media 2007, Culture 2007, life-long Education and Youth in action 2007. These agreements, however, will only be "partial", in that discussions on the forthcoming financial perspectives 2007-2013 remain blocked, but according to the UK Presidency, it is still worth reaching consensus on the non-budgetary aspects.
Work will start on Monday afternoon after a public deliberation on the programme Media 2007, which will be the only "audiovisual" point dealt with at the session. The ministers will then go on to tackle the "culture" agenda items, starting with a public deliberation on the programme Culture 2007. They will then hold a general discussion on the decision establishing the European capital of culture for the period 2007-2019, to replace the 1999 decision due to the integration of the new Member States. The Council will then go on formally to designate Linz (Austria) and Vilnius (Lithuania) as European capitals of culture in 2009, and will approve the proposal made last May by the Luxembourg and British delegations to appoint Claude Frisoni and Jeremy Isaacs as members of the jury tasked with designating the "European Capital of Culture". The first day of the Council's work will be closed with an exchange of views on the Commission's objective of creating European Digital libraries in order to make written and audiovisual heritage more easily accessible to the citizens. The Commission, which launched an on-line consultation (communication "i2010: Digital libraries"), due to finish on 20 January 2006, is set to present a recommendation on this subject next year.
Tuesday morning will be given over to the "education" plank, starting with a public deliberation on the life-long education programme 2007-2013, an integrated programme which incorporates the sub-programmes Socrates, Comenius, Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, Grundtvig and Jean Monnet. The ministers will then adopt a resolution on the mobilisation of European brains (in May, Commissioner Figel presented a communication on this) and conclusions on the importance of developing skills in order to achieve the Lisbon objectives. The "education" agenda items will be closed with an exchange of views on the joint report for 2006 by the Commission and the Council on the "Education and Training 2010" working programme, for which the Commission adopted a preliminary draft on 10 November (see below), to be adopted by the Council in February 2006. The "youth" agenda will kick off with a public deliberation on the programme Youth in action 2007. The ministers will go on to adopt a resolution on the challenges and problems for the young people of Europe, as part of the follow-up to the "European Youth Pact ", which was adopted at the European Summit of March, and the final agenda item will be a last exchange of views on initiatives to bring Europe closer to its young citizens.