Meeting em Bruxelas - Working Group on Europe 2020 & ET2020 08 October 2014 -

 

Chair: Joke Van der Leeuw-Roord, EUCIS-LLL General Secretary

Participants: Alen Maletic (EUCIS-LLL), Andras Szucs (EDEN), 

Antti Reinsalo (EUCIS-LLL), Audrey Frith (EUCIS-LLL), Bland

ine Smilansky (EUROCLIO), Elisa Briga (EFIL), Ulla-Alexandra Mattl
 (EUCIS-LLL), (Daniele di Mitri (OBESSU), Eszter Salamon (EPA)
, Helmut Vogt (EUCEN), Tiia Meuronen (SOLIDAR) Tania Berman
 (EAEA), Gina Ebner (EAEA) Etelberto Costa (ETDF), Stefan
 Jahnke (ESN), Kathleen Wabrowetz (ESN).
Guest: Philippe Ternes, Attaché for Education at the
 Permanent
 Representation of Luxembourg to the European Union.

1. Welcome words

• Joke Van der Leeuw-Roord, EUCIS-LLL General Secretary, gave an introduction to the Working Group.

2. Adoption of the agenda

• The agenda is adopted.

3. State of play of the new EU political framework

Infonote on the New European Commission

EUCIS-LLL has prepared an information note on the new Commission after sending out some regular email alerts. M. Juncker put forward his political guidelines with 10 priorities. It includes a new Investment package of 300 billion EUR that should support investments in education infrastructures. New elements in the mission letter of the Commissioner-designate for education, training, youth and citizenship are that he will be responsible for: Joint Research Centre (JRC), Europe for citizens¹ and the investment package. The JRC used to be under the Commissioner responsible for research and innovation. The EACEA is also mentioned, the underlying idea is that the executive agencies will be given a more political role in contributing to policy-making. The new structure with vice-presidents has to be clarified and evaluated. Challenges: how to work with the new structure: with at least 3 DGs and a vice-president.

The main steps of the Commissioner-designate hearings were also presented. Consent needs to be given to the whole college; Committees have been conducting internal votes and a new set of written questions was sent to a 3 Commissioner-designates including M. Navracsics. After the first public hearing of M. Navracsics the press described him as sticking to the script, presenting general, vague answers while many MEPs were not convinced and therefore requested additional questions in order to complete their evaluation. The 6 additional questions were presented in regard to the Europe for Citizens programme and its funding, Bologna process and mobility, Hungarian media law and education policy, Hungarian media reform and the judiciary system reform and its connections to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and lastly, to concrete aspects of education infrastructure that would be presented to vice-president Katainen. MEPs also asked him to take distance from Viktor Orban’s government publicly. After receiving the responses, the CULT committee agreed against him having the designed portfolio (votes 14-12) but agreed on his suitability as Commissioner for the new Commission (15-10). Seemingly, citizenship will be taken away from the portfolio. Final decision is taking place at the high-level level between the EP and EC with a plenary vote on 20 and 23 October.

• EUCIS-LLL will send an updated infonote including the written answers to the second set of questions sent to M. Navracsics.

LLL Intergroup

EUCIS-LLL is advocating for the establishment of an intergroup on comprehensive lifelong learning, led within the European Parliament by MEP Sirpa Pietikainen (EPP, Finland) and supported by MEPs from various political groups. After merging the idea of EAEA to have an intergroup on adult learning, EUCIS-LLL is leading the call to establish a new intergroup inside the Parliament. A letter will be prepared by EUCIS-LLL to be shared with the members to be submitted to “MEP contacts” for signature before the deadline of submission of the lists of Intergroups by political groups on 22^nd October. The signing can be done both electronically and manually. The MEPs will be asked to express their willingness to commit either by supporting or participating in the future intergroup.

4. European Education, Training and Youth Forum 2014

The working group was presented a EUCIS-LLL video: “Civil society messages to the European Education, Training and Youth Forum”. It concentrated on 3 questions: the next priorities for 2020, the priorities for the future Commissioner and the role and contribution of civil society.

The video is to be sent in the evening in a press release that reflects the three main messages: inclusive growth as the forgotten pillar of Europe 2020 and the need to promote equity, social cohesion and active citizenship; an integrated and holistic vision of learning and the need to invest in education. Discussion took place regarding the music, copyrights and open resource licence and the length of the video. Based on the comments and feedback, changes will be made to the video and once final changes are incorporated, the link to the video will be shared for future reference.

5. LLL Week 2014 draft programme

The Secretariat gave an update on the draft programme of LLL week from 2^th to 11th December. The confirmation is yet to arrive concerning the exhibition space from the booking department of the EP - this concerns the Civil Society Place, which would enhance the interaction between MEPs, and members organisations and increase their visibility. EUCIS-LLL has asked for the best rated canteen area: the one we had the first year and which is very busy at lunchtime. The week is hosted by Julie Ward (S&D, UK).

Validation of non-formal and informal learning: Sirpa Pietikäinen will host it (EPP, FI); it will take place on 11 December; the agenda and speakers are almost finalised. The Bertelsmann Foundation has agreed to give a grant if EUCIS-LLL helps them to organise a follow up session to present their study on validation.

Funding of education: Jill Evans will host it (Green, UK). It should take place on 9 December. The agenda is still at a draft stage; we have to organise two panel discussions to focus the debate. The members were invited to provide feedback and give ideas on the organisation of the event.

There will be a cocktail reception on Tuesday. There are two options: organise it in the EP or in Mundo J. EAEA proposed to have an event during the week for all Brussels contacts, possibly in Mundo J. EPA has contacts with Goodyear and will assess a possibility for them to support/participate in the LLL Week for example by having a stand.

The secretariat will send out a call for members to have stands at the Civil Society Place and organise their own events during the LLL-week.

6. Presentation and brainstorming on EUCIS-LLL WORK PLAN 2015-2017

Audrey Frith explained that the policy priorities for EUCIS-LLL are those that were agreed in the Manifesto: Ensure Accessible and Quality Learning for All (pedagogic Innovation, quality Assessment, educators’ working conditions and flexible pathways); Invest in the Social Dimension of Education and Training (no More Segregation, Learning Mobility, Key competences and basic skills and Lifelong guidance); and “Bring the EU Closer to its Citizens” (European Civic Education, Good Governance, Civil dialogue and Statute of European Association). Of course EUCIS-LLL will continue the monitoring of Erasmus+ and other funding programmes.

She explained that the working groups will be continued (Europe 2020 and Validation) and new ones created (learning for well-being and digital learning – to be confirmed). The idea is to create “clusters” of members wishing to lead those topics and using Strategic Partnerships to operationalise our priority actions.

Concerning the learning for well being working group the idea is to look at the learning environment instead of only at the learning outcomes: what are positive conditions to learn and to develop the “learning to learn” competence for example, which has disappeared from the EC agenda. In order to bring together the views of EUCIS-LLL members and to move towards a comprehensive understanding of ”well being” in lifelong learning, the secretariat will launch a survey.

A new partnership with the YFJ was signed in July 2014 and provided chances to map synergies in youth-related issues and in the recognition of volunteering. The idea is to work together on the recognition of volunteering with events and position papers.

2015 will mark the 10^th Anniversary of EUCIS-LLL and that would offer a chance to revisit our vision on lifelong learning but also our visual identity. We will also assess our relation to the new European institutions and see how we can bring our messages outside of the education DGs and committees: working with other portfolios to widen the policy areas, for example towards development issues, migration and global citizenship, social and employment policies.

Bringing citizens closer to the EU will remain as one of the main objectives of EUCIS-LLL and thus, elaborating the existing work in terms of citizenship should taken into account. We will continue to work with other NGOs to defend the interests of civil society and to promote civil dialogue.

The brainstorming of Work Plan will continue in a steering committee meeting on 7^th November and after that, a draft will be circulated to members for comments and input.

7. Presentation and exchange of views on the education, training and youth priorities of the upcoming Presidency of the EU

Mr Philippe Ternes, Education Attaché at the Luxembourg Permanent Representation to the EU, presented the priorities of the upcoming Luxembourgish Presidency of the Council of the EU (starting 1^st July 2015) to the working group members. He presented the priorities of Luxembourg outlining that they were subject to change.

The main priority of the Luxembourgish presidency in the field of education, training and youth will be multilingualism. An interest will be directed to discuss multilingual language teaching and look at the best practises in other countries. Early school leaving will be another priority. Regarding youth, the Presidency will be interested in the connections between political participation in new social media and multilingualism. In his presentation, the attaché also mentioned youth work as one the keys in their approach to youth policies during the Presidency.

To the question of the language benchmark proposed by the Commission in “Rethinking Education”, the Attaché explained that this would not be re-opened for the moment and that they preferred to tackled the issue of multilingualism by sharing practices.

Our representative in the Thematic Working Group on Transversal Skills, Joke van der Leeuw-Roord reminded the sensitivity in approaches regarding multilingualism and raised concerns for children with special needs and low achievers, who can also struggle from multilingual policies; and that discussions in this regard are welcome.

The members of working group thanked the Attaché for his kind participation to the exchange of views and pledged the Luxembourgish Presidency to remain open and willing for cooperation with civil society in order to build together, along with hearing the voice of civil society, the upcoming Presidency. The Secretariat will forward the list of participants of the working group meeting to the attaché for future contacting. Members are invited to send their contributions to the Secretariat in order to compile them and send them to Philippe Ternes.

8. AOB

EAEA presented their campaign: European Year for Adult Learning – The power of learning

EPA reminded about the Invitation to the Bucharest GA and Conference of EPA on the role of home-school relationship on preventing early school leaving and school violence (28-29.11)

The Secretariat provided a brief reflection on the LLL-Hub meeting in Lisbon (2-4.10)

1Note that this information is no longer correct. Citizenship has been taken out of his portfolio.