Madam President, I would like to thank the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport for having accepted this proposal to carry out a study on universities and higher education in the European area of knowledge. I must say that many ideas from my fellow Members of Parliament are taken up here, and I have listened extensively to the views of the European Students’ Association and the European Universities’ Association, as well as many other sectors and that, furthermore, a hearing has taken place. However, before discussing the main issue, I would like to say that there are no amendments and that simply, in order to aid the reading of the text, I would ask the secretary for the plenary session to introduce two subtitles: 'European Area of Higher Education ', before item 1 and 'Bologna Process ', before item 5. Why is it necessary to produce this report? There is a certain contradiction in Europe. For more than 1 500 years the universities have been an axis upon which European culture has been built. Furthermore, they have been the places where dialogue has been created, where scientific thought has been developed and where young people have been educated. But, nevertheless, curiously, we are seeing a process of distancing – which many call ‘endogamy’ – of universities from the system and the European Union, and the Commission itself and European policies are not taking sufficient account of the role the universities could play as consultants, institutions and conveyors in relation to the Community acquis. As well as being highly professional and independent, these institutions are established throughout the Union’s territory and should be key references for civil society, as places for dialogue and debate and as support for the MEDA programmes and the programmes of the candidate countries, as well as centres for training in many respects, even more than they are at the moment. We are not therefore just addressing the Committee on Culture, which we know has created specific programmes on the universities, but the whole of the European Commission. We are therefore discussing the first European document on this issue. By this I mean that, on the one hand, we invite the universities to come closer to Europe, to observe Europe and take an interest in European issues and, on the other, we invite the Commission to extend its relationship with them in all respects. What are we asking for in the report? It is necessary to reinforce the creation of a European area of education and, to this end, the universities must be protagonists. Furthermore, we need them to take on the scientific and conceptual challenge facing Europe and its regions and nations. The universities must also be guardians and must be committed to quality and be the main protagonists and conveyors of the culture of hard work and open and transparent evaluation. Evaluation, transparency and quality should be the responsible reaction of these bodies which are generally funded with public money and in which society trusts to educate our future generations. We support the Bologna process, starting with the universities themselves and with the Council, with all that it implies: mobility, recognition of qualifications, the creation of networks, etc.; but it is understood that, in order to achieve this convergence, both the recognition of qualifications and the increase in mobility amongst teachers, students and researchers, it is necessary to make admissions procedures more flexible and make the Bologna process itself more open, as well as the architecture of qualifications. In that way people will feel more comfortable and more at ease and it will be easier to take account of the diversity of problems posed by the different types of qualifications and research, as well as the varying characteristics of practical training. The production of a Green Paper is also requested, because it is surprising how little we know about the situation of the universities. The indicators – the few available – in many cases show very negative figures; the universities are going through a great crisis: they have made a great effort to bring education closer to everybody, and they have often lost out in terms of competitiveness. They must be helped. We must recognise the research profession, promote research and create incentives so that students, when young, are initiated into these aspects; it is necessary to reward merit, mobility and results, and it is essential that the universities increase their role as centres for life-long learning. They must be centres for the spreading of technology and innovations, as well for the updating of knowledge. It is also suggested that the presence of universities in the media be increased as well as the promotion of distance-learning universities – they have asked us for this – and at the same time that a 'centre for universities' be created, as a centre for the universities to meet so that their relations are not maintained via the Internet and at a cool distance, but that there may be a place in Europe for debate on universities.

Political group: PPE-DE