The history of European cooperation in education and training
European Commission, February 2006.

This publication, released on the thirtieth anniversary since education and training entered the European stage, details how the Europe of education was born and how it was built over the last three decades, with its difficulties and its achievements, such as the adoption of the first cooperation programme in February 1976 or the launch of the first action programmes at the end of the 1980s (Comett, Erasmus, Petra, Lingua, Force, Tempus), which broadened the scope of cooperation and increased its potential impact at national level.

The publication illustrates the unique nature of this cooperation which, since the beginning, has succeeded in combining Community action with respect for national competences in the field: Community cooperation in education has applied the principle of subsidiarity since the outset, even before the term was coined — bold and active subsidiarity, for the good of its citizens.