Mr President, this report covers a very important issue and one that has been prominent in my post bag for nearly six years. If we are serious about the European ideal, we have to be able to ensure that it is easily sold to those who are convinced about the concept and those who are not. I was a teacher for 16 years and now, as an MEP, I have spent a lot of time in schools, colleges, and at conferences arguing for just this sort of action. It links in with many positive initiatives over the last few years with which we are all familiar – Socrates, Youth for Europe, Leonardo and so on. Young people in general are very positive about the European Union. They do not have the problems often associated with other age groups. They are used to multicultural and diverse communities. But confronted, as they so often are, by factors that work against the European ideal, they rely on their own experiences. We have to ensure that the experiences of young people – students and others in the educational world – are positive. Nothing will be more damaging to their developing views, than if a report such as this fails to make progress or if it fails to deliver greater mobility or if it fails to at least start to demolish the barriers that confront educational mobility today. Back to the beginning. When it first presented its report, the Commission accepted that its recommendation was less than satisfactory. I understand that it even considered withdrawing it. Since then, a great deal of work by my own staff, by Parliament's staff and indeed by the Commission's own staff, to all of whom I pay warm tribute, has presented us with what I thought, until today, was perhaps a worthy if not perfect report, certainly one that was satisfactory and would go some way to achieving my aims. Today, and at the eleventh hour, the Commission have advised me, albeit indirectly, of its difficulties. Firstly, I understand that the Commission now believes that all references to researchers to be outside the legal base as provided for under Articles 149 and 150. I ask the question: why is this information only available on the 4 October? Why has someone waited until now to come up with this? Was this legal advice not known when on numerous occasions I discussed its inclusion with members of the Commission staff? Indeed, when Mr Mantovani and I and the whole Social Affairs Committee were encouraged to progress the case, why was I told that the researchers would be the subject of a later Commission recommendation if there is no legal base for it? And why in 1996 did the Commission publish a Green Paper – Education, Training and Research – if there was no legal base for it? Was that, I ask, not a waste of Commission and Parliament time and indeed money, then and now. No-one has more respect than I for Mrs Reding and her Commission staff so I am sure that tonight in her response she will be able to address the particular points that I raise and that she will not present a prepared statement. I will now turn to some of the particulars which I addressed in the report – details which were defined and honed in response to discussions with a huge number of parties, from students to ministers, teaching unions to government, representatives from several, if not all, the countries. The report seeks to remove legal and administrative, and indeed cultural, barriers to mobility. It promotes the wider use of a variety of financial means of assistance. It tries to promote an EU-wide area of qualifications and specifically to make the lot of third-country nationals easier regarding mobility. Specifically my report replaces the worthy international generalisations by, in effect, repatriating the decisions to the Member States. I tried to make sure that the report only covers areas over which Parliament and the Commission has jurisdiction. I have endeavoured to ensure the recommendations with any fiscal implication are limited to a bare minimum. As with any Parliament report, experience has shown that there is little chance of anything happening, or at best little possibility of uniformity across Europe, if there is no monitoring. For reasons which I understand, but which will have the effect of neutering the whole report, the Commission will, I am led to believe, be rejecting Amendments Nos 46 to 51. Indeed, they have already press-released it to the effect that they are going to do so. Commissioner, I say to you that without an action plan, without any indicators to see who is doing what, and how well they are doing, without assessment of progress, there will be so many discrepancies, so many complaints, so many letters in your post bag, so many students and teachers knocking at your door, and indeed so many MEPs lobbying you, that I suggest you will wish, even allowing for the constraints under which you work, that you had accepted the amendments I proposed and which I hope Parliament will accept. In conclusion, I was both pleased and flattered when this report was referred to by President Chirac in his speech to Parliament some weeks ago. If the French Presidency are now serious, then I suggest that Council will have to work very hard to salvage both their and the Commission's reputation as a matter of urgency for I suggest the failure to endorse this report in its entirety will send all the wrong, and very confusing, messages to important groups of our society. IN THE CHAIR: MR MARINHOVice­President

Political group: PSE