At its plenary session on 9 and 10 April, the Committee of the Regions adopted an opinion on European benchmarks in education and training. The rapporteur was Mr Lars Abel, member of Copenhagen County Council (DK-EPP).

As Mr Abel put it, "The benchmarks the Commission proposes are of vital importance for standards in our education and training systems and thus for the EU's capacity to become a knowledge-based, competitive economy.

European benchmarks in education and training: Regional and local authorities need to be involved in the benchmarking process

The Council, while taking over the European benchmarks in education and training as set out in the Commission Communication of 20 November 2002, fixes the corresponding objectives to be met by 2010, namely to:

5. the Council conclusions of 5 May 2003 on Reference Levels of European Average Performance in Education and Training (Benchmarks) which stressed that "the Council has agreed to establish a series of reference levels of European average performance.which will be used as one of the tools for monitoring the implementation" of the 'Education Training 2010' work programme .

common European tools specifically aimed at VET, by: participating in the testing of ECVET and encouraging its implementation; drawing on the principles underlying a Common Quality Assurance Framework, as referred to in the May 2004 Council Conclusions on quality assurance in VET, in order to promote a culture of quality improvement and wider participation in the ENQA-VET network; common European tools in which VET plays a major role, by: linking national qualification systems or national qualifications frameworks to the EQF; supporting national qualifications systems in incorporating international sectoral qualifications, using the EQF as a reference point; p ...[+++]romoting widespread use of EUROPASS.