Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Völkerverständigung and
Coudenhove-Kalergi-Stiftung Forum
Klosterneuburg, 6 March 2006

Dear Dr. Alois Mock, Dear Dr. Josef Hoechtl, Minister Gehrer,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Introduction
The conference organisers suggested that I should speak about education as the key to
Europe’s future. Clearly, education does, in many respects, open doors to the future.
This is true at the level of the individual: schooling is a preparation for life, and even as
lifelong learning is becoming accepted as the norm, we think of continuing education and
training as the basis of our further personal and professional development.
At the level of the European Union, education is at the heart of the “knowledge-based”
Lisbon strategy for our future growth and prosperity.
But the role of education as a crucial policy area for the EU was not always taken for
granted. So, before looking at what education might hold for Europe in the future, it is useful
to cast an eye back to the past, to see just how far we have already travelled.

European construction process, as you know, had everything to do with promoting peace
among the peoples of Europe. It makes sense to build Europe and preserve peace through
education. The preamble to the UNESCO Constitution puts it,
since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of
peace must be constructed.
As the great nations of the European continent were cautiously pooling control of coal and
steel—the raw material of war at the time—they were even more determined to retain control
of education as a national prerogative.
After all, it has been said that compulsory education and compulsory military service were
the two pillars on which the nineteenth-century nation state was built, and old habits die hard.
Jean Monnet was right to stick to the gradualist approach of making tangible progress in a
limited number of areas, and building gradually on these successes.
Once the peoples of Europe had begun draw closer together through cooperation into other
areas, the demand for cooperation on topics like education and culture would become
irresistible.

Where we have come from
There are still many hesitations and barriers facing us in the future in regard to educational
cooperation, but I take courage from our past achievements.
The Commission will shortly be publishing a history of European cooperation in the field of
education, and I would warmly commend this book to you.
It traces not just the last three decades of action within the European Community context, but
also the “precursor” years from The Hague conference onwards, when the initial preference
of countries was for the intergovernmental method.
That was an approach which gave rise to the Council of Europe and the European Cultural
Convention.

When we survey where we now are in terms of education cooperation in and around the
legal and political structures of the European Union, we really have to salute the vision of
those people who persisted against all odds.
The Erasmus programme has become so successful that now nine out of ten universities
across Europe are participating in European projects, networks or mobility actions; and close
to 1.4 million students have benefited from mobility grants.
As you know, an Erasmus student spends a semester or a full academic year studying in
another country.
In all, the number of people directly touched by the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci
programmes, whether as students, as academics, as apprentices or as teachers or pupils
taking part in Comenius projects, is well in excess of two million individuals.
Yet, when the Commission proposed the Erasmus programme, several of the largest
member countries opposed key elements of it on legal grounds, because they insisted that
education fell outside the scope of the European Community treaties.
I might add that it was the small Member States that opened the door for Erasmus by their
support for the Comett programme for vocational training at higher-education level, but
difficult negotiations still lay ahead before the principle of the Erasmus programme was
accepted.
Much of the argument at that time hinged on the distinction between education and
vocational training.
We could cooperate on vocational training because it was a logical consequence to the
principle of free movement of labour, which was one of the cornerstones of the common
market.
But education was taboo once we called it education. It was not really until 1996, with the
European Year of Lifelong Learning, that we shifted our attention from the artificial distinction
between education and training to the continuum of which they both form part.
At the same time, we shifted the focus from the component parts of education and training
systems, with the learner as object, to the learner as subject, taking charge of his or her
lifelong learning pathway.
Even then, and still today, we had two separate Treaty articles dealing with education and
vocational training, articles whose wording is in part identical.
In another thirty years’ time, that distinction will surely seem strange. But, for the present, the
Commission is more concerned with making tangible, concrete progress on substance than
with time–consuming argument on symbolic issues.

In our own way, we are still pursuing the pathway to the future pioneered by Jean Monnet.

Where we are today
It is common to consider education in the light of the essential functions:
– development of the individual’s talents and creativity,
– socialisation and civic competence,
– preparation for the world of work and
– cultural awareness and inter-cultural competence.
Today we are finally reaching a balanced view that reflects this holistic vision of education.
The breakthrough came at the Lisbon European Council in March 2000, when the European
Union set itself a ten-year strategy for competitiveness, growth, employment
and social cohesion. Our aim is to build knowledge-based society and
economy.

As is known, the strategy was reviewed a year ago and refocused on growth and jobs. What
did not change was the stress on education and innovation as the key to reach its goals.

From the Lisbon strategy emerged two factors which are critical for our present work.

• First, the fact that knowledge is at the heart of the Union’s competitiveness strategy.
  – Second, the adoption of the so-called “open method of coordination”, by which Member
  States are willing to cooperate in a non-binding way on issues which support the strategy,
  even if they do not fall completely within the legal framework of the Treaty.

Thanks to these two factors, Ministers for education agreed on an increasingly integrated
policy framework which we now call “Education & Training 2010”.
The cornerstone of this strategy is the recognition that investing in knowledge is vital for our
future prosperity and social cohesion.
As you can see, it is again the economic argument that has enabled us to make progress.
But thanks to the open method of coordination we can take a balanced view that covers all
strands of lifelong learning, from pre-school to post-retirement.

The framework includes

• a comprehensive process of mutual learning on the fundamental objectives of education
  and training systems;
  – action in the field of Vocational Education and Training (the “Copenhagen process”);
  – the outcomes of the Bologna process in higher education.

The modernisation of education and training systems in Europe is already under way. The
Education Council has recently reached consensus on a number of principles to foster
lifelong learning:

• the validation of non-formal and informal learning;
  – quality assurance;
  – and guidance.

And other initiatives like a proposed framework of key competences and a European
qualifications framework are working their way through the system. We work also on e.g. a
European Indicator of Language Competence.

Four essential areas of cooperation

Let me outline four areas of cooperation which we consider essential for Europe’s future: key
competences, mobility, the European Qualification Framework, and higher education.

1. Key Competences
   A central objective of reforms is to equip all learners with the key competences they need to
   live and work in modern society, and with the capacity to learn throughout their life.
   Last November the Commission proposed a Recommendation on Key Competences for
   Lifelong Learning. The framework includes languages, entrepreneurial initiative, cultural
   expression, mathematics, science and digital competence.
   But it also draws attention to learning-to-learn skills as the basis of further, lifelong learning.
   The proposed recommendation is a framework, a starting-point: it will still be for national
   education systems, and ultimately for individual teachers and learners, to breathe life into it.

2. 
   Mobility
   A fortnight ago, I had the honour of taking part in the launching of 2006 as the European
   Year of Workers’ Mobility.
   With mobility, we are on the more familiar ground of turning the Union into a single space.
   Part of what we are trying to achieve is a “mobility culture” for workers in Europe.
   Historically, mobility, in the form of emigration, has too often been involuntary, driven by need
   rather than choice.
   Emigration has often been the only path open to those with few skills, but even emigration by
   those with skills – so-called “brain drain” – has often slowed down the development of their
   regions of origin.
   What we need to do now is equip people with the education and the breadth of vision to
   contemplate mobility as a normal part of their lives, but with the expectation that it may be
   temporary mobility.
   The Irish experience of return migration in the 1990s has been an important lesson for both
   developed and less–developed regions of the Community.
   People who returned there after perhaps five or ten years abroad brought back new skills
   and entrepreneurial attitudes which have helped to spread economic growth more evenly.
   So we need to shift our thinking from “brain drain” to “brain circulation” and mobility for
   ordinary workers as well as for top–class researchers. I strongly hope we will get real support
   for mobility actions under the Integrated Life-long Learning Program in the next Financial
   Perspective 2007-13. Austrian Presidency, negotiating on behalf of the Council with the
   Parliament and the Commission, has important responsibility in this direction.

3. EQF
   To promote mobility and the emergence of a true European labour market, the development
   of a European Qualifications Framework—or EQF—is also essential.
   The idea I intend to present later this year is essentially a translation tool that will allow
   people to compare and transfer qualifications and that will serve as a basis for voluntary co
   operation.
   The EQF will make systems and qualifications more transparent and facilitate the work of
   Member States, employers, trade unions and other actors.
   Here I must clarify what the EQF is not: it is not a means to replace or to harmonise national
   qualification systems. We can’t do this and we do not want to do it.
   The EQF is simply a reference point to facilitate communication and provide a better
   understanding of each other’s systems and qualifications. This is why we have chosen the
   learning outcomes approach.
   The EQF establishes the principle that it is the result of learning that matters, not where or
   how the learning took place. In fact, it will include formal as well as informal learning.
   When it is in operation, the EQF will make it easier for learners and employees to plan their
   lifelong learning. But for it to work, a certain degree of trust is needed.
   Mutual trust is the engine of our proposed framework. The system works when one country
   decides to relate its national qualifications to specific EQF levels and when this decision is
   trusted by another country.

4. Higher Education
   Ladies and Gentlemen,
   I left higher education for last because our universities and research centres have a major
   role to play to restore the European Union’s world–class intellectual and innovation capacity.
   Only a handful of our universities are mentioned in the world’s most–quoted international
   rankings.
   Moreover, Europe is benefiting less than its main competitors from the increased
   globalisation of research and development.
   The Commission identifies governance, financing and attractiveness as the crucial
   challenges facing European universities.
   When the EU national leaders met in Hampton Court last October, they all agreed that
   research and the universities are crucial to the future of Europe in the world.
   I am now working with my colleague Janez Potocnik—responsible for research and
   development—to follow this up, and we will put forward a series of proposals for action on
   education, research and innovation.
   The Bologna process for higher-education reform is proceeding apace, and already changing
   the face of higher education in Europe.
   Although this cooperation process takes place outside European Union structures, the
   Commission is also very much involved.
   It is so informal and sui generis that one cannot even call it intergovernmental; but it would
   have been unthinkable without the achievements of Erasmus.
   I am talking not so much about instruments like transferable course credits, but rather about
   the climate of mutual trust which Erasmus has built up through cooperation and
   communication—initially between individual university departments, sometimes just a handful
   of dedicated academics, then between universities, and gradually between national systems.
   The Bologna process is now attracting increasing notice from non-European countries,
   whether neighbouring countries, the major industrialised nations or developing countries.
   With my colleagues Verheugen and Potocnik, and with the strong personal support of
   President Barroso, I am also working to create a European Institute of Technology.

The European Institute of Technology

The European Institute of Technology—or EIT—is our latest proposal to boost impact of
education in the EU; it was adopted by the Commission only two weeks ago.

The EIT will help turn knowledge and research into business opportunities and will promote
entrepreneurship among scientists and scholars.
The EIT will be a permanent and independent organisation for education, research and
innovation in core strategic fields and will work through partnerships with existing
universities, research centres and companies.
The principle is simple: the EIT will pool together Europe’s scientific and educational
excellence and attain global visibility such as is enjoyed by only a handful of European
universities.
The aim is to reach a critical mass and create a “knowledge community” like no other on our
continent. The physical facilities will remain at the partner institutions, but the knowledge
community will operate as an independent organism.
I am confident our national leaders will support the idea. When they do, we will prepare a
more detailed proposal by the end of the year. At this stage, we remain open as to how the
Institute is going to work in practice. If everything goes to plan, the first knowledge
community would start its operations by 2009-2010.

Where we are going?

Ladies and Gentlemen:
Let me recap the two main points I’ve made so far:
i) there is a new willingness to consider learning in its totality, and
ii) education is regarded as a key contribution to the construction of Europe.
These points lead to a very difficult question: what kind of a Europe do we want? What kind
of values do we want education to foster, critique, and transmit?
We are not building a grand European nation or empire on the nineteenth-century model. To
use the current language, I suppose one could say that the Europe which we are building is a
post-modern construct.
To the extent that it has been successful in helping us heal the damage done by nationalism
and the post–1945 settlements, it has lost one of its primary purposes and needs to reinvent
itself.
But if we return to seeing it largely in economic terms, we will not mobilise our young people,
and we will not meet the challenges of the future.
I recently met the new German Minister for Education Ms Anette Schavan, and was very
pleased that one of the three priorities that she has identified for Germany’s forthcoming
presidency of the European Union is the role of education for Europe’s cultural identity.
That will be a very valuable contribution to the preparation for the European Year of
Intercultural dialogue which will take place in 2008. Recent events have demonstrated the
great urgency of a dialogue between cultures.
Fortunately, the growing sense of trust and shared purpose among European countries
makes it possible to engage in a much more profound reflection process on what education
brings in terms of values.
Austria, during a previous presidency of the European Union championed the approach
„Bildung ist mehr”.
Under this motto it advocated a more rounded approach to education than the “utilitarian”
approach which still tends to dominate the discourse of the Lisbon strategy.

That initiative led to a report on the cultural dimension of education—and especially its
intercultural aspects. In helping to restore human values and personal development to their
rightful place in the educational debate, Austria has, I believe, pointed the way towards the
future.
Austria has also taken up a leading role in putting education for sustainable development on
the agenda.
An important conference, which will take place next week in Vienna, correctly identifies
sustainable development as an element of “Education for responsible global citizenship”.
This more visionary approach to education is the sort of thing which can inspire our young
people to reflect on the issues that will set the context for their adult lives: environmental
sustainability is a key element, of course, but also the ethical aspects of present patterns of
world development are an essential aspect of sustainability.
It is therefore important that, in our education discourse, we do not just focus inwardly on
European issues. We must also look at Europe’s role in the world, and at what education can
contribute to defining that role.
We need to redefine our relationship to our neighbour countries, to the major industrial
nations, but also to the regions of the world which have been left behind.
This is not a task which can be left to statesmen and diplomats: we need to bring all our
citizens, and especially our young citizens along with us, and only education can achieve
this.

Conclusion

Ladies and Gentlemen:
I set out to talk about education as the key to Europe’s future, however I realise that I have
devoted rather a lot of attention to the past.
But if I did, it was to draw lessons and above all inspiration and determination for the future. If
Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi’s thinking was always future-oriented, it drew upon his great
breadth and depth of historical knowledge.
He had the wisdom to realise that history is the high school of politics, even if historic events
do not repeat themselves.
Our present European Union has not evolved in line with his vision of a Pan-Europe: but
many elements of his vision of 1923 can be detected in the Union which we now have.
Decisive factors of Europe’s future are (1) our awareness of growing interdependence and
importance of togetherness, and (2) consciousness of our shared responsibility. Better and
more education is a road towards more maturity on both factors. I want to thank both the
Society and the Foundation for being very active and contributing in this maturation process.