ABSTRACT
At the Lisbon European Council held in March 2000 the Heads of State and Government acknowledged that ‘the European Union is confronted with a quantum shift resulting from globalization and the challenges of a new knowledge-driven economy’ and set the Union a major strategic goal for 2010 ‘to become 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’. It stressed that this would require not only a ‘radical transformation of the European economy’, but also a ‘challenging program for the modernization of social welfare and education systems’ (European Council 2000: 2). Never before had the European Council acknowledged to this extent the role played by education, training and research systems in the economic and social strategy and the future of the Union.
