The Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union will start their six months Presidency as from the 1st of July 2018 until the 30 December 2018.  This Presidency is part of the trio of: Estonia (in the second half of 2017) and Bulgaria (in the first half of 2018).  Here is a joint programme for the entire 18‑month period of the current ‘Trio Presidency’.

Regarding education, the Austrian Presidency central theme will be focused on education and higher education will be the future of the EU cooperation on education. Specifically on:

• ET 2020: The Strategic Framework – Education & Training 2020: what will come after ET 2020.
• European Education Area: The Commission’s Communication on “Strengthening European Identity through Education and Culture”.
• Presidency will strive to achieve a consensus on the proposal for a Council Recommendation on the mutual recognition of higher education and school leaving diplomas/ study periods abroad, and to start negotiations on the proposal for a Council Recommendation on boosting language learning.
• Erasmus+:  The aim for Erasmus is indeed to reach a compromise among Member States and maybe even to start negotiations with the European Parliament (EP) and the EC by the end of the year.

On 9th-10th of July the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union organised a VET expert conference: “The Future of Vocational Education and Training in Europe“. The conference aims to initiate expert level discourse, focussing on current and future challenges presented to European VET systems. It will bring together European stakeholders, officials and experts in the field of VET to discuss a joint vision of VET in Europe post 2020 in light of impacting factors and to identify the required policy responses at the national and the European level. EfVET will have the opportunity to attend this high-level conference, as already did during Bulgarian Presidency.