Innovation, knowledge, sustainable growth, green economy and creativity are popular and well-known expressions of our times. Putting them together we immediately get to the European Union’s president Barroso’s newly-presented programme, “EU2020”. The winter period is dedicated to its consultation, while the spring season can bring a breakthrough for the strategy with the summit of Heads of State and government. In the meantime the Commission is encouraging every stakeholder to shape the future together and announced a public consultation until 15 January 2010 highlighting the common role-taking and responsibility either at the national or community level. The EU2020 strategy has three key priorities: “(1) creating value by basing growth on knowledge; (2) empowering people in inclusive societies; (3) creating a competitive, connected and greener economy”. This programme would be a successor of the Lisbon Strategy with a strong focus on the education and training area. Therefore the ‘common thinking’ and proposal writing is highly recommended for the prominent actors of the education and training sector.

Although Barroso’s vision and the EU2020 working paper is very promising, since the lesson learned from the shortcomings of the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy , the theory and  practice do not necessarily go hand in hand. As soon as the world recovers from the economic crisis, the EU could start to make the EU2020 strategy come true, or could it also be a solution for the recession?

• European Commission