Education is a vital component in ensuring more resilient democracies as well as active civic participation. Both the EU and the Council of Europe see access to quality education as the best investment for the future, an indispensable medium for equal opportunities, growth and stability. It enhances interpersonal and intercultural understanding, drives social integration and represents one of the core instruments in the fight against hate speech, discrimination and intolerance. The COVID-19 pandemic has only been a catalyst for a pre-existing education crisis. Only through joint efforts the European institutions can succeed in making our education system more future proof.

The Council of Europe is an essential partner for the EU in the area of education, for example when it comes to fostering education for digital citizenship to prepare democracies to face the new challenges of the digital age. Our common objective is the responsible use of information technologies, especially with regard to civic engagement online. The EU Priorities for Cooperation with the Council of Europe 2020-2022 recognise the importance of digital citizenship with respect to the risks arising from artificial intelligence and digital technologies, including their impact on human rights, the rule of law and democracy. Going forward, the EU hopes to implement the Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027 in close cooperation with the Council of Europe.

The EU strives to support the work of the Council of Europe when it comes to education. On the occasion of the first annual conference of the newly established Observatory on History Teaching in Europe (OHTE) in December 2021, EU-Commissioner Margaritis Schinas reiterated his support to the initiative. The Observatory is collecting information on the state of history teaching in participating countries and aims at pooling knowledge as well as enabling comparison and exchanges of best practices. There are currently seventeen participating countries, nine of which are EU member states.

In addition, the EU continues to cooperate with the Council of Europe in the framework of the 'Democratic and Inclusive School Culture in Operation' programme, which promotes democratic citizenship in human rights education.

Another important field of cooperation concerns the area of language education. Within the framework of a cooperation action with the European Commission, the European Center for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe (ECML) launched in 2021 the initiative “The future of language education in the light of Covid” to take stock of the challenges and opportunities that the pandemic has presented for language education. As an initial step, a survey not only looked at how methodology, learning aims and assessment had been affected across ECML and EU member states but also asked respondents to give details of the lessons learnt so far during the pandemic, the positive aspects of their experiences and what they considered to be the greatest challenges.  

Moreover, in the framework of the longstanding EU-Council of Europe cooperation partnership in the policy area of youth, the European institutions continue to address also educational issues, by putting the younger generation at the centre of attention. In particular, during the European Year of Youth 2022, the European Commission strives for empowering young people in Europe to make their voices heard. In order to better meet the educational needs of the younger generation it is crucial to involve them in decision-making processes and to foster youth participation.

These are only a few examples that show the highly valuable synergies between the EU and the Council of Europe in the field of education. Both organisations firmly believe that better education builds better democracies and hopefully they will continue to mutually benefit from each other’s work.