European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

112 EUROPEAN IDENTITY. INDIVIDUAL, GROUP AND SOCIETYeducation, training and youth must take action alongside their respectivepolitical leaders so as to accept it and ensure that the Europe ofknowledge we are dreaming of becomes an everyday reality for ourcitizens”.Political cooperation in the fields of education and training isreceiving increasing support in the European Union. On 14 February,2002, during Spain´s presidency, a working agenda on goals to beachieved in educational and training systems was approved. Theagenda was based on three important pillars:—To enhance the quality and efficiency of educational and trainingsystems in the European Union.—To facilitate access to education and training to everyone.—To open educational and training systems to the outside world.Both the Commission and the Council are determined to meet thechallenges that the society of knowledge, globalization and EU enlargemententail, and they have established a number of ambitious yet realistgoals. In the interest of citizens and the EU as a whole, the followingobjectives related to education and training should be met by the year2010:—To reach the highest possible quality in education and training,so that Europe is considered a world reference for qualityeducation and training in its Institutions.—To succeed in making Educational Systems compatible enough toallow citizens to move from one to the other, benefiting fromtheir diversity .—To ensure that all diplomas and qualifications awarded in any EUcountry get full validation in the rest of the EU.—To facilitate access to lifelong learning to all European citizens ofall ages.—To succeed in opening Europe to cooperation in mutual interestand in the interest of all the other regions and, consequently,become the favourite destination for students, scholars andresearchers from other parts of the world.The European Council, in cooperation with the Commission, hasthe responsibility of co-ordinating and monitoring the necessarystrategies for the accomplishment of such goals. The Commission isdue to send a report to the European Council in the year 2004 withthe results obtained.Up until now, policies promoting the accomplishment of goals relatedto basic skills —such as Information and Communication Technology