EfVET President Professor Joachim James Calleja was a keynote speaker at an international conference in La Orotava, Tenerife on 21-22 May 2026 on Fewer Borders, More Talent organised by the Servicio para la Internacionalizacion de la Formacion Profesional y Regimen Especial (SIFPRE), the Government of the Canary Islands and co-financed by the European Union. Professor Calleja spoke about Prospects of a new EU VET Strategy: Rhetoric versus Reality.
He reviewed the trajectory of the Copenhagen Process as an initiative that achieved 50% of its recommendations. This is due to its soft governance structure, voluntary cooperation, agreements mistaken for implementation and measured intent rather than impact. With low skilled people in Europe standing between 60 and 70 million; youth unemployment at 15%, adult learning at 37% when the target for 2025 was 60% and VET mobility at 5.1% compared to an 8% target, Europe should be looking into implementing recommendations and not visions for VET. Implementation is still an illusion for European VET. Notwithstanding the progress in EU VET since 2002 and the application of European tools such as the EQF and the Europass, several member states require direct support for VET implementation reforms by increasing EU funding, cutting on bureaucracy and sifting energies towards implementation-driven policies. Professor Calleja stated, “it is time to move from rhetoric to implementation. Europe does not lack vision, tools, declarations and VET research but it lacks the courage and mechanisms to implement and support many member states. We should not be asking what we should do; but rather, why are we not doing it?”. Over 200 educators from the Canary Islands participated. The conference was supported by the students and teachers of the IES La Orotava and the Spanish Ministry of Education. The conference was co-chaired by the Head of SIFPRE Ruth Alvarez Rodrigues and Jorge Damas Chinea a student of the IES VET School in Orotava.