Annexes to COM(2017)673 - Strengthening European Identity through Education and Culture The European Commission's contribution to the Leaders' meeting in Gothenburg, 17 November 2017 - Main contents

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dossier	COM(2017)673 - Strengthening European Identity through Education and Culture The European Commission's contribution to the Leaders' meeting ...
document	COM(2017)673
date	November 14, 2017

agreements already signed in Spain, France and Romania and another four agreements in preparation in Belgium, Italy and the Czech Republic. The MEDIA programme has, since 1991, invested over EUR 2.5 billion in the creation of European films and audio-visual products, supporting their production, their promotion and their distribution across borders.

In view of the growing challenges to qualitative journalism and factual reporting by the phenomena of "fake news" and "alternative facts", we need to take a stronger stance in support of media freedom, media pluralism and media transparency in Europe. Even though Europe has no direct competence over the media, the EU has for years a close link with Euronews. In 1993, Euronews was created by a number of national Europeans public broadcasters, with the ambition of having a European public broadcaster offering access to independent, high-quality information with a pan-European perspective. At the time, the project was meant to contribute to the strengthening of European identity. For that reason, without becoming a shareholder, the EU has been providing financial support to the channel, supporting the broadcast of programmes in nine EU languages, but also of services in Arabic and Farsi. EU funding today represents 36% of the Euronews budget (EUR 25 million a year).

However, over the years, European national public broadcasters have become minority shareholders, while non-EU private broadcasters and private investors from third countries have increased their share. There are increasing concerns whether a channel that gives viewers the impression of being a kind of a European public broadcaster is always reflecting the diversity of opinions as they exist in Europe and European values. This is why we need a reflection and a decision at the political level on the degree of ambition the EU has for the future of Euronews. The European Parliament should be closely involved in this process.

The way forward (for the ideas put forward below that entail access to EU funding beyond 2020, final decisions will only be taken in the context of the future discussions on EU finances and the multiannual financial framework for the next period):

- prepare a Council Recommendation on common values, inclusive education and the European dimension of teaching;

- strengthen the financing capacity of the Creative and Cultural Sectors Guarantee Facility by 2020 in order to allow banks and other financial institutions from an enlarged number of countries significantly to increase financing of small and medium-sized companies in the cultural and creative sectors;

- launch by 2020 a #Digital4Culture strategy with the purpose of coupling culture and digital and using the digital potential to enhance the positive economic and societal effects of culture;

- revamp and strengthen the European Agenda for Culture by 2025, based on the cultural mainstreaming principle of the Treaty, to promote the cultural dimension of the Union, with particular emphasis on a European identity through culture and values;

- strengthen the European dimension of Euronews.

5. Conclusions and outlook

Europe is a cultural community, based on shared values and successful economic integration, in particular the internal market. The European Union's social market economy is a hallmark of the European way of life, combining economic freedom with social principles, as reflected in the European Pillar of Social Rights.

Education and culture are primarily policies in the hands of Member States and of their regional and local authorities. The European level is playing an important complementary role, in particular, when it comes to cross-border activities (the most prominent examples of EU action being the Erasmus+ and the Media programme). It is in the shared interest of all Member States to harness the potential of education and culture in full. A collective effort would enable Europe as a whole to deal better with the challenges it is facing.

A vision for 2025 would be a Europe in which learning, studying and doing research would not be hampered by borders. A continent, where spending time in another Member State – to study, to learn, or to work – has become the standard and where, in addition to one's mother tongue, speaking two other languages has become the norm. A continent in which people have a strong sense of their identity as Europeans, of Europe's cultural heritage and its diversity.

Delivering on this vision must be a common endeavour. It will mean working together towards a shared agenda, in full respect of subsidiary.

At the heart of this shared agenda is the idea to work jointly towards a European Education Area based on trust, mutual recognition, cooperation and exchange of best practices, mobility and growth, to be established by 2025, including via:

·making learning mobility a reality for all;

·removing obstacles to the recognition of qualifications, both at the level of schools and higher education;

·modernising the development of curricula;

·boosting language learning;

·creating world-class European universities that can work seamlessly together across borders;

·improving education, training and lifelong learning;

·driving innovation in education in the digital era;

·giving more support to teachers;

·and preserving cultural heritage and fostering a sense of a European identity and culture.

Investing in people does not come for free. For this ambitious shared agenda to be credible, the European Union will have to engage in commensurate people-based investment. Supporting young people to gain experience in another Member State will require substantial funding. The political ambition would need to be aligned with the means to act and will therefore need to be reflected in the future discussions on EU finances.

Other elements will not require new funding but an investment in cooperation, for example, by streamlining provisions on recognition or removing legal obstacles that hinder cross-border mobility and cooperation.

Member States already invest, on average, almost 5% of GDP in their education systems. However, there are important differences between Member States, with some spending around 4% or less (Romania) while others spending up to 7% (Denmark). Working towards upward convergence to make Europe a continent of excellence will require improved investments in education in some Member States, closing the gap to the EU average.

EU level investment in education and training complements national efforts. This applies to a variety of instruments, ranging from mobility programmes (in particular Erasmus+), research and innovation programmes (Horizon 2020, in particular Marie Skłodowska Curie), European Structural and Investment Funds, financial instruments (including the Investment Plan for Europe which already funds education related projects in Finland, Portugal and Latvia) and the Structural Reform Support Service. Education is primarily funded through public expenditure. However, in the context of tight public finances, both at national and EU levels, the potential of using innovative forms of funding, for example tapping into private investment and using investment tools such as the European Fund for Strategic Investments, would also need to be explored for some types of education equipment (e.g. to provide high connectivity in schools) and certain forms of education (e.g. to promote higher education cooperation).

This shared agenda would be implemented on the basis of the existing distribution of tasks and competences, using tried-and-tested ways of working together. In particular, the European Semester would play a key role in supporting structural reforms to improve education policy outcomes and bring about upward convergence. A priority would be to offer to everybody access to high-quality and inclusive education, training and lifelong learning, in line with principle no 1 of the European Pillar of Social Rights.

The existing EU-level cooperation in the field of education and training, with its focus on exchanging experiences, mutual learning and providing national policy-makers with evidence on best practices on what works well in education, would be relaunched with a 2025 perspective in the light of the new priorities and the ambition to build up a European Education Area. In particular, it would support the launch of a process (“the Sorbonne process”) that, politically and technically, will accompany the work on removing obstacles for recognition of school leaving and higher education diplomas, and work towards the smoother cross-border validation of training and lifelong learning certificates.

As President Juncker said on 1 March 2017 when presenting the European Commission's White Paper on the Future of Europe: "the European Union has changed our lives for the better. We must ensure it keeps going doing so for all of those that will follow us". Putting education and culture at the heart of our reflection on how to strengthen our shared European identity, and putting forward concrete ideas and initiatives to achieve this goal, are the best way to sustain the diversity and richness of our Union.

At their meeting on Education and Culture in Gothenburg on 17 November 2017, Leaders are invited to discuss and give a strategic orientation on the following six key policy suggestions from the European Commission (without prejudice to the decision on the next multiannual financial framework):

1)boost the Erasmus+ programme in all categories of learners that it already covers (pupils, students, trainees, apprentices and teachers) with the aim of doubling the number of participants and reaching out to learners coming from disadvantaged backgrounds by 2025;

2)work on a Council Recommendation on improving language learning in Europe, setting out a benchmark that, by 2025, all young Europeans finishing upper secondary education have a good knowledge of two languages, in addition to their mother tongue(s);

3)work on a Council Recommendation on the mutual recognition of higher education and school leaving diplomas/study periods abroad. This could be accompanied by a new process, building on experiences from existing cooperation schemes to facilitate such recognition and take further the cross-border validation of training and lifelong learning certificates ("the Sorbonne process");

4)strengthen the financing capacity of the Creative and Cultural Sectors Guarantee Facility by 2020 in order to allow banks and other financial institutions from an enlarged number of countries significantly to increase financing of small and medium-sized companies in the cultural and creative sectors;

5)work towards truly European universities that are enabled to network and cooperate seamlessly across borders and compete internationally, including the creation of a School of European and Transnational Governance (hosted by the European University Institute in Florence, Italy);

6)strengthen the European dimension of Euronews.

(1)

COM(2017)2025

(2)

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/state-union-2017_en

(3)

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/talinn-leaders-agenda/

(4)

COM(2017)206

(5)

COM(2016)381

(6)

COM(2016)940: Investing in Europe’s youth; COM(2016)941: Improving and Modernising Education; COM(2017)248: School development and excellent teaching for a great start in life; COM(2017)247: A renewed EU agenda for higher education.

(7)

COM(2017)240

(8)

Initiated in 1999, the Bologna Process is an intergovernmental process which facilitates the mutual recognition of diplomas in higher education across 48 countries.

(9)

https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/

(10)

Belgium (French community), Germany, Ireland, Spain, Croatia, Hungary and the United Kingdom are countries in which learning two languages is an option rather than an obligation.

(11)

The European day at school is a good example of how students can get in contact with Europe. Since 2007, the project launched by Chancellor Merkel, at the occasion of the German Presidency of the Council, offers students in Germany the opportunity to get to know Europe better. Politicians from all political levels, as well as officials from the European institutions are invited to visit schools and discuss Europe.

(12)

https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/actions/capitals-culture_en

(13)

https://ec.europa.eu/culture/european-year-cultural-heritage-2018_en

(14)

https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en

(15)

https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/