Wounded by a Divide Syndrome: The Impact of Education and Employment on Euro-Med Cohesion

Abstract

As an effect of historical, religious and political circumstances, the people of the Euro-Mediterranean region suffer from a divide syndrome. This condition manifests itself in various forms, notably conflicts, prejudices, intolerance, neo-colonial patterns of behaviour, segregation and the lack of an endogenous approach to regional policies. Today, the bridging process, which started in Barcelona in 1995, requires a more meaningful ownership. The Euro-Mediterranean Process and the European Neighbourhood Policy are reinforcing this process. This essay presents education and employment as the two key policy components for the development of such ownership and explores to what extent a comprehensive vision of these sectors can lead towards Euro-Mediterranean cohesion and identity.

Notes

¹ In response to the implementation of the 2004 OSCE Ministerial Council Decision Number 12/04 on Tolerance and Non-Discrimination, the OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism and on Other Forms of Intolerance which was held in Cordoba on 8 and 9 June 2005, addressed this divide and in particular how the media can avoid anti-semitic messages in systems of mass communication and the internet.

² Commission Launches 5-year work programme to reinforce Euro-Mediterranean Partnership – Press Release downloaded from http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do.

³ Press Release, 12.04.05 IP/05/419 downloaded from http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do.

⁴ See, Commission Launches 5-year work programme to reinforce Euro-Mediterranean Partnership – Press Release downloaded from http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do.

⁵ Since 2000, member states of the EU committed themselves to a transformation of the systems of higher education into a framework for qualifications of the European Higher Education Area. This process, known as the Bologna Process, led to the creation of the European Credit Transfer System and the framework for qualifications of the European Higher Education Area. In 2002, a new Copenhagen Process was initiated to achieve a Vocational Education and Training Qualifications Framework. The two processes are now converging into a European Qualifications Framework which will be operated through an EU Integrated Programmes Initiative. Member states of the EU are currently undertaking reforms in education and training with a view to achieving the goals set in the Lisbon Strategy. Such a strategy has the key objective to make the Union the ‘most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’, http://europa.eu.int/growthandjobs/index_en.htm. Knowledge and employment are the key factors which will determine the success or failure of such a strategy.

⁶ The European Qualifications Framework was presented during the Maastricht Ministerial meeting, held in December 2004, and re-elaborated during the Bergen meeting of May 2005 to include a Framework for Qualifications of the European Higher Education Area. The Framework is based on eight levels in response to three main elements: a set of common reference levels to formal qualifications and to competences acquired through combinations of formal, non-formal and informal learning; a range of common references and principles agreed at the EU level on quality in vocational education and training, guidance and the validation of non-formal learning which aim to achieve mutual trust, and finally the European Qualifications Framework, which will provide citizens with a series of instruments such as the EUROPASS, European Credit Transfer System and EU Vocational Education and Training. Such instruments will support job mobility across EU member states, improve matching of labour needs through the modernization and strengthening of labour market institutions notably employment services, greater transparency of employment and training opportunities at national and European levels, and better anticipation of skill needs. See Education Committee doc DS 193/05. See also Minutes of Directors General of Vocational Education and Training [DGVT] meeting held in Luxembourg 18–19 April 2005. For further information including EU reports and papers see www.cedefop.eu.int, and http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/2010/doc/jir_council_final.pdf.

⁷ Commission launches 5-year work programme to reinforce EMP, http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do.

⁸ See Achieving a Common Vision: A UK contribution to the future of the Barcelona Process. See also EUROMED Report 90, 1 June 2005, and Conclusions from the VII. EUROMED Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Luxembourg, 30–31 May 2005.

  ⁹ http://europe.eu.int/comm/world/enp/policy_en.htm.

¹⁰ The emphasis of this paragraph is on shifting the current focus of identity, exclusively based on religious and cultural identities, to one based on development, prosperity and security. The terms ‘development’ and ‘prosperity’ are being used to express the notion in the widest possible sense excluding notions of ‘territorial and religious’ hegemony. The term ‘security’ encompasses the physical territory, as well as the individual's health, well-being, safety and the satisfaction of basic needs.

¹¹ See COM (2004) 101 and COM (2004) 487. The reasons leading to this proposal were explained by the Commission to the Council and Parliament in her communications on the financial perspectives. See also COM(2004) 628 final and 2004/0219 (COD).

¹² See COM (2004) 373.

¹³ Ibid.