Political agreement reached on lifelong learning: Environment Council, 27 June

Brussels, June 2006

40th Council Meeting - Environment. Luxembourg, June 2006
Provisional version

Following the agreement on the EU's financial framework for 2007-2013, the Council reached a political agreement on a draft decision establishing an action programme in the field of lifelong learning, aimed at providing financial support for the European education sector for the period 2007-2013.

The text agreed will be adopted as a common position at a forthcoming Council meeting and sent to the European Parliament for a second reading.

The new programme will comprise four sub-programmes already existing within the current Socrates programme: Comenius (school education); Erasmus (higher education); Leonardo da Vinci, (vocational education and training); Grundtvig (adult education). It will also include a "transversal" programme incorporating four key activities (policy development, language learning, innovative approaches and dissemination of project results), plus a Jean Monnet programme to support action related to European integration and European institutions and associations. A single programme should permit greater synergies between the different fields of action as well as more coherent, streamlined and efficient modes of action.

The aim of the new programme is both to contribute through lifelong learning to the development of the Community as an advanced knowledge society and to foster interaction, cooperation and mobility between education and training systems within the Community, with the aim of becoming a world quality reference

The financial envelope allocated to the programme is set at EUR 6 200 million.