Legislative Observatory
European Parliament
Please fill in this field to find a procedure

Single Community framework for the transparency of qualifications and competences (Europass)

2003/0307(COD)

This report on the first evaluation of the Europass initiative is based on an external evaluation. It presents the evaluator’s main findings and recommendations as well as the Commission’s conclusions and intended follow-up. This evaluation covers the period from January 2005 to August/September 2007): two and a half years of operation of the Europass portal and two full years of implementation at national level.

The report makes clear that the evaluation finds that the Europass initiative is relevant and provides an effective service to citizens moving for lifelong learning or in the labour market. Its implementation tools are cost-efficient and highly appreciated by users. The potential of the initiative could however be more fully exploited, for which purpose the evaluation presents a number of recommendations which are as follows:

  • Europass is already particularly relevant for learners' mobility and development action is now needed on occupational mobility, namely international job mobility;
  • the Europass CV is highly valued and should be developed further, by improving its template and offering a shorter version, in consultation with employers, recruitment agencies and guidance centres;
  • promotion at national level should be intensified through cooperation with guidance centres and businesses;
  • more examples and guidelines on the use of all Europass documents should be provided on the portal;
  • Europass Diploma Supplement should be developed further to take learning outcomes better into account;
  • complementarity of Europass with the education and training programmes should be intensified;
  • cooperation with other transparency developments should be ensured.

The Commission, in consultation with the Lifelong Learning Programme Committee, the European network of National Europass Centres (NECs) , the Advisory Committee on Vocational Training and the High Level Forum on Mobility, and in accordance with available resources, plans to:

  • cooperate further with guidance, employment and youth services to make Europass more useful for and better known to the low-qualified and the unemployed, now inadequately represented among the users of the Europass portal and the Europass CV;
  • develop, with the support of Cedefop, a fully fledged Europass CV and self assessment service, including:

-          a more flexible Europass CV, with options targeting different user groups, such as inexperienced young people, the low-qualified, mid-career professionals or professional researchers, also drawing on existing resources addressing such. A shorter and lighter version of the CV will also be developed. Compatibility with the CV databases of national employment services and recruitment agencies will be further pursued, following the forthcoming compatibility with the CV service of EURES (European Employment Services), the European Job Mobility portal;

-          self assessment tools to allow people go deeper in identifying and describing their learning outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills and competences. These will include developing further the existing Europass Language Passport, in cooperation the Council of Europe, and developing new self-assessment tools focusing on personal skills, namely those acquired through non formal and informal learning, and also on ICT skills;

-          appropriate tutorials, guidelines and examples, to be developed in cooperation with the NECs, the Euroguidance network, the youth and employment services, and the social partners;

  • generalise by 2010 the use of Europass Mobility under the Lifelong Learning Programme so that it is systematically issued to all citizens who have completed mobility actions under any of the individual Erasmus, Comenius, Grundtvig and Leonardo da Vinci programmes, and promote its use within the Marie Curie programme. This will be undertaken in consultation with and require the support of the programme national agencies and the NECs;
  • through the NECs, and in cooperation with the guidance, youth and employment services, promote further the use of Europass Mobility in mobility actions established at the national or regional level, including as a standard part of higher education exchanges and in relation to the mobility of apprentices, as well as within youth and volunteer activities;
  • encourage the coordinated management, promotion and integration within the Europass framework of the Europass Diploma Supplement in cooperation with the relevant actors at the European level (Council of Europe, Unesco-Cepes, Bologna process secretariat, ENIC-NARIC networks, university and students' associations) and at the national level (the NECs, programme national agencies, higher education institutions, Bologna experts, ENIC-NARIC centres, stakeholders associations). The further development of the Europass Diploma Supplement will be examined, in cooperation with the relevant actors, in order to record better its holder's learning outcomes;
  • encourage the coordinated management, promotion and development of the Europass Certificate Supplement at the European and national levels, in cooperation with Cedefop, the Social Partners and other relevant stakeholders. This will take into account the relevant developments within the Copenhagen process, for instance in relation to occupational profiles, the European credit transfer system for vocational education and training (ECVET), as well as the shift towards learning outcomes;
  • ensure that, by 2012, the templates of all relevant Europass documents include a reference to the European Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning.