Members of the CoR's SEDEC commission adopted today by overwhelming majority the draft opinion by Marie-Louise Rönnmark (PES), Mayor of Umeå, Sweden, responding to the European Commission's New Skills Agenda for Europe and to two proposals for a Council Recommendation on establishing a Skills Guarantee and on the European Qualifications for lifelong learning. The Agenda seeks to address three major challenges: the lack of relevant skills to match labour market needs, the insufficient transparency of skills and qualifications, and the difficulty to anticipate and forecast skills. To this effect, it proposes 10 actions - to be taken forward over the next two years - to ensure that the right training, skills and support are available to people in the EU.
"Confidence in the future requires openness to learning and ability to upskill", underlined the rapporteur in her introductory speech, pointing to the need for the swift and effective implementation of the New Skills Agenda. She welcomes the Commission's proposal for a Skills Guarantee for low-skilled adults in Europe, considering that skills are instrumental to self-fulfilment, employability, social inclusion and active citizenship and that investment in human capital constitutes a social investment. She does, however, insist that the new scheme should detail the explicit goals and obligations that reflect the individual's commitment to upskilling, as is the case for the Youth Guarantee.
Rönnmark calls for a clear link between efforts to identify skills and relevant educational measures in the form of individual study plans, arguing that such plans should be supported at local and regional level by a number of flanking measures. The rapporteur argues for the full involvement of local and regional authorities, in their role as education providers, in the discussions about key competences and she supports the elaboration of comprehensive national strategies for digital skills. Moreover, she is in favour of reviewing the European Qualifications Framework and underlines the importance of skills identification, language introduction and upskilling efforts to promote integration at work and in society of refugees and asylum-seekers.
The draft opinion is due for adoption by the CoR plenary of 7-8 December.
