Asia–Link symposium
Beijing, 19 October 2007

Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Zunjing de (authorities in attendance),
Zunjing de ge wei lai bin,
Nv shimen Xianshengmen,
Wo hen gaoxing he rongxing nenggou zai zhongguo he oumeng jian kaizhan
hezuo.

I am pleased and honoured to be here today to open with you a new channel for
mutual understanding and practical cooperation between Europe and China.
I believe that this Asia–Link Symposium in Beijing is a real step forward
towards collaboration in higher education.

Today’s meeting provides an ideal platform for dialogue at a time when higher
education exchanges between our academic and political authorities are growing
at an unprecedented pace.

I warmly welcome these developments. I am sure that they will bring great
benefits to both sides thanks to a clear framework of cooperation and a
disciplined process.

Going through the programme for today’s works, I can see that all the major
areas of debate will be covered.
Speakers, panellists and the audience will discuss the need to establish a policy
framework and a joint agenda for the exchange of students, academics and
researchers.
We need to understand where things stand at present and we need to plan future
developments. Above all, we need to realise that there is a great deal we can
learn from each other.

We have vastly different experiences in our distant and recent past. However,
we both have a tradition of learning that goes back many centuries and both our
peoples give enormous importance to education.
This is perhaps the most striking similarity between Europe and China when it
comes to giving shape to our joint programmes and policies.
According to a survey conducted on the then 25 countries of the EU at the end
of last year, Europeans believe that getting a good education is the most
important thing for getting ahead in life.

This is a view shared by as many as 62% of the respondents. By comparison, the
second most important factor turned out to be ‘working hard’, with 45%.
There is ample evidence that education is of paramount importance in China as
well. One indicator is the high level of household savings, which is partly
explained by the desire of Chinese parents to give their children the best start in
life.

I believe these are good foundations on which we can build our common
understanding and future cooperation, because they are rooted in what our
peoples really want.
I feel we have no higher responsibility—academic and political authorities
alike—than to serve the people we represent and design the policies that bring
them the benefits they expect from us.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am sure, that this spirit of service is what will drive our debates today. This
Asia–Link Symposium is the ideal forum for the launch of a more structured
policy dialogue between the EU and China on culture, education and vocational
training.

This policy dialogue will take concrete shape in the next few days when two
joint declarations are signed between the Chinese ministries of culture and
education on one side and the European Commission on the other.
The declarations will cover issues of common interest such as lifelong learning
policies, language learning, sectoral cooperation and mobility.

There is no doubt that we are both interested in having regular exchanges of
experience and best practices, because—as I said—the EU and China have a lot
to learn from each other.

Our dialogue will also cover a thorough review of policy developments and
challenges in the domain of learning.

Finally, our policy dialogue will consist of discussions concerning existing and
future forms of cooperation that will be identified jointly by the two parties.
I attach a great deal of importance to these declarations and to the practical
outcomes that they will make possible.

Higher education is fast becoming a global business, it is a good idea that
partners from distant regions of the world share a platform to analyse its trends
and plan their policy response together.

An open and sustained support to these actions will bring us both positive
returns for at least three reasons:
First, the EU and China together are home to 1.8 billion people. Any form of
co–operation and mutual learning between our education and training systems is
bound to help raise educational standards throughout the world.

Second, past experience in Europe and elsewhere shows that joint efforts in
education and training typically have positive effects on the economy.
It is to be expected that, in a not so distant future, the strategy of cooperation
that we are launching today will translate into stronger trade links between the
European Union and China.

Finally, I cannot overestimate the cultural and political significance of our joint
declarations.
They explicitly acknowledge “the crucial contribution of culture to improve
mutual understanding and tolerance” and express the intent to “further the
mutual recognition of academic degrees” of certain institutions between China
and EU countries.

I believe that these are words of wisdom. There is no better place to build lasting
and fruitful understanding between two peoples and cultures than a centre of
learning.

Again, I can draw on the rich European experience of academic exchanges to
prove this point. The European institutions have been running a students’ and
teachers’ exchange programme for exactly twenty years—you probably know it
well—it’s called the Erasmus programme.

From a rather unassuming start, 1.7 million young Europeans travelled with
Erasmus so far, and the goal is to bring the figure to 3 million in five years’s
time.
Why am I telling you this? Because Erasmus is by far the best known and most
appeciated programme among all the programmes and actions of the EU.
You go around Europe and you will see that Erasmus has become a byword for
our united Europe; people identify it as a practical European success.

I believe much of this success is due to the fact that with Erasmus we managed
to take the idea of European integration into classrooms and campuses.
Young people in an educational setting are the most fertile ground where the
seeds of openness, mutual understanding, and curiosity towards the other can
grow and become strong.

The positive effects of Erasmus have been felt far and wide across Europe as the
union was expanding to its present 27 countries.
In educational terms, this exchange of people and ideas contributed to the
reform and to the integration of the whole higher–education sector in Europe; a
process that our Member States started in earnest in 1999 and that is still going
on.
In cultural terms, Erasmus has brought together the peoples of Europe like no
other action of the EU.

Now, we believe that what has worked within Europe can work as well with our
partners around the world.
This is why we established Erasmus Mundus; a programme that opens EU
universities to the students, teachers and researchers of the world.
And the facts are beginning to show again the power of higher education as a
factor for inter–cultural dialogue. After only 3 years, Erasmus Mundus is
already a success story in China.

Over 400 Chinese students and 85 academics have come to Europe to attend
Masters’ programmes and to do teaching and research.
The numbers may not look too large for the most populous country in the world,
but the rate of participation has grown dramatically over the last three years, and
we look forward to continuing to develop this flagship programme.
There are other EU initiatives in education cooperation with third countries, and
they complement each other well.

One is, of course, our Asia–Link programme, which promotes cooperation
between European and Asian universities on several levels.
But there is another aspect of our joint declarations that I would like to stress
before closing my address: and this is language.

The declaration devoted to education and vocational training mentions language
teaching and learning three times.
This is indicative of our strong belief that languages are the best channels
through which we can establish deep and lasting intercultural dialogue, no
matter how distant the cultures involved may be.

The languages we speak identify us as individuals and communities. If we are
serious about getting to know each other better, we simply must make the effort
to speak each other’s languages.
Ladies and gentlemen,

Since the time when traders and explorers travelled along the silk road, China
and Europe know a great deal more about each other.
In our time, no two countries or regions of the world are distant enough as to
think they are unconnected. Globalisation means above all inter–dependence
and—I would add—it demands from us all the utmost care in our respect of
cultural diversity. But it also means defending those values which we hold most
dear and explaining our commitment to them to our partners.

Every responsible political leader has realised by now that we all face common
challenges—just think of climate change—and we must work together if we are
to overcome them.

Today we are taking a step in the right direction.
Renewing and extending our commitment in the fields of education, training and
culture sends a clear message of peace, dialogue and cooperation on the
international scene.
Thank you