Opinion on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the Community action programme Socrates (1) (94/C 195/11)

On 21 February 1994 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under Articles 126 and 127 of the Treaty establishing the European Union, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the Community action programme Socrates.

The Section for Social, Family, Educational and Cultural Affairs, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its Opinion on 14 April 1994. The Rapporteur was Mr van Dijk.

At its 315th Plenary Session (meeting of 27 April 1994) the Economic and Social Committee adopted the following Opinion unanimously.

1. Introduction

1.1. Articles 126 and 127 of the Maastricht Treaty establish a general objective to contribute to the development of quality education and training.

1.2. It is now widely recognized that the development of human potential is a precondition for attaining the economic, social and quality of life objectives the Community has set. Education plays an important role in the development of human potential. It is also a key factor in combatting social exclusion and unemployment, a common political concern acknowledged in the White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment.

1.2.1. The responsibilities of the higher education establishments as regards cooperation actions as a whole go hand-in-hand with economic growth measures.

1.2.2. Teaching establishments alone cannot issue vocational training certificates, but it is their responsibility to provide pupils and students with the necessary basis for their personal, general and professional development. In order to achieve this, it is normally necessary to work in companies, as part of a sandwich course.

1.3. Education and training have new roles to play in the process of economic and social change which Europe now faces. This will mean deep-seated changes in the education and training systems of the Member States.

1.4. The Socrates proposal is intended to ensure the continuation of Community action already undertaken, particularly under the Erasmus and Lingua programmes, to enable such action to rise to the challenges of the 1990s and to guarantee rationalization between the activities under Erasmus and Lingua as well as the other budget headings available for cooperation in education.

1.5. The programme covers three areas of activity:

- higher education;

- school education;

- horizontal actions to promote language learning, open and distance education and learning, information and exchanges of experience.

2. General comments

2.1. The action programme Socrates has to be seen in the light of Chapter 7 of the White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment in which education is mentioned as a key instrument for combatting social exclusion and unemployment, racism and xenophobia.

2.1.1. After the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, the Task Force for Human Resources of the Commission presented three new programmes on exchanges, i.e. Leonardo, Youth for Europe III and Socrates.

2.1.2. The Committee welcomes the integration and continuation of the former Erasmus and Lingua exchange programmes (2).

2.2. The Committee welcomes Socrates as an exchange programme, and considers it an efficient instrument for the promotion of the European Dimension in Education. In this connection the Committee would refer to the Opinion of the Study Group on the European Dimension in Education (Rapporteur: Mr Pasquali).

2.3. The Committee is in favour of the extension given in the programme to education at school level and notes with satisfaction the innovation of the programme. In fact, the Committee in the above-mentioned Opinion on Lingua (1) was already concerned with the fact that teaching of languages was limited to the higher education level.

3. Specific comments

3.1. Given the range of activities included in the Community action programme Socrates, and that they focus equally on education and training, especially at the level of higher education, the programme uses a dual legal base, namely Articles 126 and 127 of the Treaty. Article 126(4) states that: in order to contribute to the achievement of the objectives referred to in this Article, the Council:

- acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 189b, after consulting the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, shall adopt incentive measures, excluding any harmonization of the laws and regulations of the Member States;

- acting by a qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission, shall adopt recommendations.

In this case the Commission has opted for a binding instrument.

3.1.1. Article 127 stipulates that the Council shall adopt measures to contribute to the achievement of the objectives referred to, excluding any harmonization of the laws and regulations of the Member States. This implies that Article 127 empowers the Council to approve measures in order to achieve the objectives referred to in Article 127.

3.1.2. The Commission uses Article 127 for two reasons:

- the exchange of teachers forms part of their vocational and further training;

- in various rulings the Court of Justice has stipulated that higher education must be regarded as vocational training. By making use of Article 127 the Commission is safeguarding the 'acquis communautaire' in this field.

3.1.3. The decision process envisaged under Article 126 is based on the co-decision procedure, while decisions taken under Article 127 are on the basis of the cooperation procedure. In both cases, the Council acts by qualified majority.

3.2. The Commission anticipates a budget rising from ECU 169 million in 1995 to ECU 236 million in 1999, a total of ECU 1,005.6 million over five years.

3.2.1. Over the last five-year period (1989-1994), ECU 376.5 million was allocated to Erasmus, ECU 153 million to Lingua, and ECU 70.6 million to other actions, making a total of ECU 600.1 million over five years.

3.2.2. The enlargement of the budget is largely due to the extension of the programme. The budget allocated to the exchanges in higher education has been increased, but not to the same degree as the total budget. The Committee would question whether the funds are sufficient.

3.3. The Socrates programme introduces changes in the field of cooperation between the participating universities. In the past, university faculties cooperated with each other. Now the Commission proposes concluding an institutional contract with all the participating universities. It is not yet clear what sort of relationship there will be between the ICPs (inter-university cooperation programmes) and the institutional contracts, and therefore the Committee would urge the Commission to provide further information on this point.

3.3.1. The changes proposed in the form of cooperation between universities will have consequences on the supply of information. The Committee would draw the attention of the Commission to this specific matter.

3.3.2. Due to the highly decentralized execution of the programme, through national agencies, coordination of information might be a problem.

3.3.3. As the Committee has already stated in its Opinion on Youth for Europe III (2), the supply of information is one of the most important instruments for making a programme a success or a failure.

3.3.4. In the same Opinion (3), the Committee has asked for a proper coordination between the various exchange programmes of the Commission, i.e. Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe III. The different national agencies should cooperate in an efficient way, as they have done in the past.

3.4. One of the most important objectives of Socrates is to develop a European dimension in education. For that reason, the instrument proposed by the Commission is to give priority to projects and activities relating to the teaching of the lesser used or lesser taught languages of the Community.

3.4.1. The Committee is in favour of protecting the lesser used and lesser taught languages, but does not think that this instrument will contribute to the European dimension in education.

3.4.2. Referring to its previous Opinions (1), the Committee recommends that two Community languages be taught in addition to the national language.

3.5. The Committee is surprised that Socrates does not foresee any exchanges with third countries for the moment, although under Article 126 the possibility is given to the Commission to undertake such exchanges. The Committee would therefore urge the Commission to broaden its exchange programme in this context on the basis of supplementary funds.

3.6. The Economic and Social Committee firmly supports maintaining the advisory committee, which is composed of 12 representatives from European organizations; its observer members should be selected from really 'representative' organizations.

3.7. The Committee considers that Chapter II, Action 2, must also apply to the children of refugees and asylum-seekers.

Done at Brussels, 27 April 1994.

The Chairman

of the Economic and Social Committee

Susanne TIEMANN

(1) OJ No C 66, 3. 3. 1994, p. 3.

(2) OJ No C 139, 5. 6. 1989, p. 12.

(3) OJ No C 148, 30. 5. 1994.