The EU’s ambivalent involvement in education and training policies

Since the Lisbon Strategy of 2000, the EU has increasingly focused on education and training (ET) policies. The latter have been proposed as a key component of the European knowledge-based economic model. In parallel to this emphasis by the EU, there has been broad consensus among scholarly experts and analysts. Supporters of the supply-side economic paradigm stress that education and training are investments in human capital, and are thus a productive factor that improves competitiveness and boosts economic progress (see Kolev and Matthes 2013). Advocates of the alternative demand-side perspective have supported ET by claiming that increased spending in the field reduces inequalities among citizens and boosts domestic demand through the public budget (Bsirske and Busch 2013). Education and training are also at the core of the social investment paradigm that relies on investments, such as in human capital, to support labour market participation and to confront new social risks (Hemerijck 2013; Vandenbroucke and Vanhercke 2014). The key question we address in this chapter is: has this emphasis on education and training resulted in a coherent effort and investment in ET both at EU and national level?