Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-28-Speech-4-014"
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"en.20020228.1.4-014"2
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"Mr President, education, education, education – the British Prime Minister once said this was his priority. I have some doubts about that and I really wonder whether this is our priority in Europe. Certainly not if you look at what we spend on it. In Europe we spend EUR 2.5 billion each year on olives, we spent less than EUR 2 billion over six years on the Socrates Programme. The rapporteur even had to fight to get a separate debate on education on our agenda this morning.
For the single market to flourish and for Europe to flourish we need an educated and mobile workforce, confident about crossing national boundaries. The Socrates Programme is important for that and so making it more efficient as Ms Pack's report urges is really very important.
Linguistic skills are certainly important for labour mobility. We all know that those students who participate in the Socrates Programme benefit tremendously from it; sadly, not enough students do. For students from my own country there is always an imbalance between the number of Continental students wanting to go to the United Kingdom and the very limited number of British students prepared are willing to go to Continental countries. What is the reason for that? It is very clear – the lack of linguistic skills among students in Britain. We must send a message to the British Government that they should reverse their appalling decision of the last few weeks to allow secondary students in Britain not to learn any foreign language at all. That is certainly not the way to ensure that Europe will flourish or that Britain will get the best benefits from its membership of the European Union."@en1
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