Mr President, Commissioner, I would firstly like to thank the staff for their excellent work and assistance in drawing up this report, and also those responsible in the Commission for their willingness to help on this matter and, above all, I would like to show my appreciation for the impressive desire for dialogue shown by my fellow members in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, which has enabled us to draw up this report with several important proposals that have been reached by consensus. The Tempus programme – or, in this specific case, the extension of the scope of the Tempus programme proposed by the Council – should be seen as part of a strategy seeking to bolster dialogue and understanding between the peoples and cultures of the European Union and the Mediterranean. Some people have been asking why we need to extend an existing programme when we could set up a new one. This is a good question, which is easy to answer. If we extend a tried and tested programme, and we manage to avoid the usual problems inherent in getting a new programme off the ground, we can draw on the experience and know-how of Tempus, incorporating the improvements that have been made to it over time and which will no doubt encourage rapid diversification in the range of university studies available as well as cooperation between Euro-Mediterranean partners. As you are all aware, the Tempus programme takes its inspiration from the chain of events that have taken place since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. This programme was set up in 1990 to meet the need to reform higher education in the Central and Eastern European countries while also encouraging Europe-wide mobility in university studies. The programme was financed by the PHARE budgetary framework. In 1993 it was extended to include the New Independent States such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation, amongst others. The second phase of this trans-European cooperation scheme for higher education affected a total of thirteen partner countries for a four-year period and since 1997 the Central and Eastern European countries preparing for accession have gradually been abandoning the Tempus programme to take part in Socrates, the Community’s general education programme. However, the Council decision was amended to extend the life of Tempus II for a further two years. This decision laid down that the Commission should undertake an assessment to consider the programming of Tempus. The Commission is now proposing to open up Tempus III to the Mediterranean partners in order to meet the needs in that region for cooperation in the sphere of higher education. The Tempus programme will thus encompass the following partners: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, and Lebanon. The purpose of cooperation in the sphere of education is to strengthen the organisational machinery that will enable universities to continue their cooperation beyond the life and scope of the assistance granted under cooperation programmes. In this way we shall place the EC institutions and institutions in partner countries and territories in a better position to develop and consolidate partnerships that could in turn generate a multiplier effect beyond the participating institutions and have a lasting impact on education systems, which is basically what we are dealing with. In addition, and this is important, by widening the range of participants beyond the traditional academic community to secure the involvement of political leaders and civil society in general, we shall be encouraging a kind of cooperation in higher education that could play a key role in changing attitudes by affording an opportunity for the young generations to compare their respective values and national cultures. The intention is to combine purely academic matters with moves to strengthen the working of civil society in Mediterranean partner countries and to help promote better understanding of the different cultures and respect for human rights and minorities in these countries. Various assessments have shown that the Tempus programme is perceived as an invaluable means of fostering mutual understanding. That is the goal on which participants must focus when they plan their activities. These are the main amendments to the Tempus programme for Mediterranean partners that we fully support in this report. There are no significant amendments to the rest of the programme. Therefore, I would emphasise the main objectives of the Tempus programme as follows: to pave the way for the development of higher education, to respond more effectively to the socio-economic and cultural needs of the eligible countries, and to promote cross-cultural understanding, rapprochement, and the development of flourishing, free civil societies. These aims are to be achieved by means of Joint European Projects (JEPs), which constitute the most important inter-university cooperation arrangements under the Tempus programme. As well as JEPs, the programme provides grants to teachers and researchers, amongst others, for a variety of complementary activities designed to further the overall objectives of the programme. In this report our intention was to highlight the need for the Tempus programme to be extended much further than the university community, so that this, which will of course continue to be its central pivot, will contribute to the transformation of civil society.

Political group: PPE-DE