Council updates its approach to education and training policy
The Council of the European Union has adopted a resolution to move 'Into the new millennium', developing new working procedures for European cooperation in the field of education and training. While it underlines that the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes remain the most important instruments for cooperation in education and training within Europe, the Council says that political cooperation at European level needs to be reinforced. To do this, it says, new working procedures for the Council must be developed in the field of education and training to improve its effectiveness. This could be achieved by creating a structured framework for political discussions and activities over the coming years, it says. Future work in the field of education could be constructed around a 'rolling agenda' based on priority themes which would be included in the Council's agenda at regular intervals and which could therefore continue over several Presidencies. The new approach should begin early this year, once the details of how it will operate are established.