Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. I am glad we are discussing so many reports together because it brings out so clearly how all the questions raised are interrelated as they impinge upon education policy and our lives. The various aspects of education policy cannot be separated any more than the subjects can be divided into different curricula with each defending his own the strongest. I think this debate shows that very well. I find myself in a pleasant situation today because my country, Austria, leads the field in Europe for schools networking in connection with e-Learning and the new media. Sixty-one percent of schools – that is 3 860 schools – in my country are connected to the Internet, including secondary schools, of which there are about 1 000. One thousand and ninety already have their own Internet sites. All universities are interconnected via the academic computer network and in that way also have access to the TEN 155 European high speed research network. I am pleased about that, but at the same time it is not enough. It is a correct and important trend that we have started, but more needs to be done and I am therefore very pleased that the Commission and the Swedish Presidency have started the European School Net, the e-scola initiative. Only last week we saw how computers and the Internet are actually being used in teaching, to improve the quality of teaching and create new oportunities for learning with the objective of using the compiled teaching and learning materials and practical examples in the future and making them more widely available. Commissioner, I thank you for your persistence in this matter. We are on the right road together. The destination is known, but we still have a long way to go. This brings me to a number of points in the debate. Firstly, the concept of subsidiarity. I am an ardent champion of the subsidiarity principle and I come from a country with a very marked degree of federalism. However, I also call on all Member States not to use the principle of subsidiarity as an excuse – as often happens – for failing to take necessary steps towards Europeanisation. For me, subsidiarity in this context means being close to the citizen, serving their essential interests regionally and individually, fulfilling necessary common European tasks, so we can face global challenges and fulfill our responsibility towards the younger generation. Secondly, education, as this example also shows, is not an end in itself, but education from school to lifelong learning to catering for the new stage in life that is old age is the prerequisite for achieving our goal of a knowledge-based economy that is number one in the world. Education policy is therefore the key to the success of economic policy. Education policy is the prerequisite for today’s young people holding their own on tomorrow’s labour market and for our fulfilling our role as Europe in worldwide competition. I should therefore like to say to Mr Korakas, who thinks protests against these objectives are already beginning, that we as politicians must do all we can to tell people that this development is happening and we have to prepare ourselves for it. Three points, therefore, to finish. First, as Mrs Martens wanted to say, it is not only about providing computers. There is also the ethical question: How are we to use what computers make available to us? The ethical question of their benefit is, like their handling, an important task for educational policy. We must also see to it that no new social time bombs are created between those who know how to use them and those who do not. If education fails to take the correct social action, that may become the new class war. I therefore also call for industry to sponsor schools so that all can have the computers they need. The next point is lifelong learning. Let us do our best to see to it that senior citizens are not forgotten when it comes to training, because only by so doing can we attain the European objectives, keep pace with world competition, make enlargement a success and avoid setting off a new social time bomb. IN THE CHAIR: MR VIDAL-QUADRAS ROCAVice-President

Political group: PPE-DE