Community action programme 'Socrates'

Parliament amended the Council's common position with the adoption of 22 amendments which aimed mainly to: - fix the date of the entry into force of the programme for 1 January 1995; - introduce as an objective the development of the knowledge of Community languages and promote the intercultural dimension of teaching; - establish as an objective the participation of around 10% of all students in the European Union; - set out the responsibilities of the programme's committee; - promote cooperation with the OECD and UNESCO; - ensure that the Commission informed Parliament of the draft of implementing measures for the programme and took account of the priorities established by the other institutions, amending its draft if necessary; - open the programme to young nationals of Cyprus and Malta as well as the associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe; - include in the annex, as an objective of the programme, university activities serving as European encounters, projects on cooperation in the field of intercultural and linguistic teaching between European schools and national schools and collaboration between students aimed at stimulating intercultural cooperation; - include the official languages of the Member States that did not have the status of official languages of the European Union in the projects relating to the preparatory language training of students. �