Mr President, before presenting my report, I should like, first of all, to thank all my colleagues for their amendments, which have improved this text, and also the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, who has delivered an extremely good opinion. The aim of the report I am presenting is to consider, on the basis of the communication by the Commission, ways of making the Member States more competitive and attractive in the international training market. We all know that the issue of training is of great importance for the coming years. Students the whole world over are increasingly looking beyond their own borders for the training that offers them the best prospects. Consequently, we are seeing the burgeoning of a real international market in training. It so happens that in Europe we have fewer students from third countries than the United States, Australia or Canada, to give a few examples. We therefore have a great deal of ground to make up and this is why my report makes a number of proposals. Firstly, we must have a detailed survey on the international mobility of students, since none exists at the moment. It would, therefore, be useful if the European Commission, through the good offices of Eurostat, could work in close cooperation with Unesco and the OECD in order to give us a clear and detailed overview of the mobility of foreign students. And it is finally time, I believe, to propose a harmonised definition of what constitutes a foreign student. My second proposal is that we must move towards harmonising the quality of higher education and the recognition of diplomas and studies. The European Union must be able to provide high-quality training, whatever the university or the host country. It is crucial for students to be able to start a degree in one Member State and complete it in another with the guarantee of seeing the knowledge they have acquired validated by a diploma that is recognised in all Member States. I therefore propose that the Commission continue to improve and to promote the university studies validation system known as the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) and that this should inspire it to develop new programmes for mobility. We must also promote the creation of joint courses between Member State universities in order to achieve, wherever possible, the award of joint diplomas. Thirdly, I propose that a European university label be established, which would be awarded to training modules provided in higher education establishments recognised for the quality of their teaching and of the reception they give to students of third countries. This university label would focus less on the quality of the university as an institution than on the modules it teaches. I feel sure that this will enable us to help promote European higher education and will send a clear signal to foreign students. Fourthly, we must also encourage the promotion of language learning. Language learning is an undisputed factor of mobility and this is why it would be desirable for the Member States to systematically establish the teaching of foreign languages in the form of modules in all institutions of higher education and also for teaching of the language of the host country to be made available to foreign students. My fifth point is that we must also guarantee high-quality reception facilities. Universities must now focus their efforts on ensuring that they provide these high-quality reception facilities for foreign students. They must be helped to deal with the administrative arrangements that they will necessarily have to face. They must be helped to find accommodation and to obtain grants. These high-quality reception facilities will be one of the criteria on which the award of the European university label will depend. My sixth and final point is that we must make use of existing programmes of cooperation that have already proved their value, such as the ALFA programme. Consequently, the new programmes should take account of the enormous importance of the drawing up of joint study programmes and the development of systems for the reciprocal recognition of courses of study and diplomas and partnership with undertakings, with local authorities or with multilateral organisations. The aim of this report is, therefore, to urge the European Union and the Member States to take action to make European higher education dynamic, competitive and attractive. The competitiveness and attractiveness of European higher education must, of course, start taking shape in the Member States first of all. The Member States’ Ministers of Education are aware of this and raise the point at every Education Council meeting. I am sure that the European Commission and Parliament are today willing to do everything they can in order to achieve the creation of a European area of knowledge that is attractive and competitive, and ultimately able to make its presence felt in international competition. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE