No C 329/28 Official Journal of the European Communities 30. 12. 89 
Opinion on the proposal for a Council Decision relating to the adoption of a Community 
action programme in the field of vocational training and technological change (EUROTEC-
NET II)(1) 
(89/C 329/11) 
On 4 September 1989 the Council decided, in accordance with Article 128 of the Treaty 
establishing the European Economic Community, to ask the Economic and Social Committee 
for an Opinion on the abovementioned proposal. 
The Section for Social, Family, Educational and Cultural Affairs, which was responsible for 
preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its Opinion on 12 October 1989. 
The Rapporteur was Mr Nierhaus. 
At its 270th plenary session (meeting of 18 October 1989) the Economic and Social Committee 
adopted the following Opinion unanimously. 
1. General comments 
The present proposal for a Council Decision (EURO-
TECNET II) is a follow-up—albeit with new points of 
emphasis—to the highly successful 1985 Community 
action programme on vocational training and new 
information technologies. The Committee endorses the 
proposal, agreeing as it does with the Commission that 
technological change requires even greater efforts to 
improve workers' skills in all fields of activity and at 
all levels. The move towards a single market represents 
an additional challenge in that workers are now 
required to be more professionally and geographically 
mobile than before and ready to work abroad. EURO-
TECNET II can help to improve the transparency of 
basic and further training in the Community, further 
the exchange of experiences, and ensure that basic 
and further training curricula and methods which have 
already proved successful in one place can benefit other 
regions in other Member States. 
The primary objective of EUROTECNET II is not only 
to initiate and promote new basic and further training 
activities, but also to make provision for the exchange 
of information and experience between individual pro­
jects. For EUROTECNET II to be successful, basic 
and further training will have to be intensified and 
innovative projects set up in all Member States, if 
necessary with national support. The Committee 
expects national governments to make special efforts 
in this area, going further than what can be offered 
under the European Social Fund (ESF). 
2. Specific comments 
2.1. The Committee would like in particular to 
emphasize the importance of EUROTECNET II's role 
in establishing links between the training facilities of 
different Member States, especially when such links 
lead to agreements on joint projects. EUROTECNET 
(') OJ No C 242, 22. 9. 1989. II should also offer support and advice on the financing 
of such promising joint projects under other appropri­
ate EC programmes (e.g. DELTA, COMETT) and per­
haps even help implement the projects. 
2.2. Special help and support should be given in 
overcoming the language problems associated with the 
development of links between demonstration projects. 
Help is needed with interpreting for workshops and 
round-table discussions attended by the organizers of 
similar projects, and with the translation of project 
descriptions, material and documentation. 
2.3. The Committee particularly welcomes the plan 
to set up European training and technology consortia. 
However, the enterprises to be included must be chosen 
with great care so as to ensure that the consortia cover 
the widest possible range of experiences, attitudes and 
approaches. This means including not only enterprises 
of different sizes and from different sectors but also 
training establishments not linked to firms or covering 
several firms. The social partners must also be properly 
represented in the consortia in the interests of furthering 
and developing the 'social dialogue'. 
2.4. The Committee also supports the Commission's 
view that training staff can have a 'multiplier effect' 
and so should play a central role in the exchange of 
training programmes. To provide training staff with 
the necessary information, more use should be made of 
the appropriate national bodies, be they trade associ­
ations, authorities, chambers or institutes. 
2.5. Although the Committee is pleased that the ESF 
is to partly finance projects, it believes that the type of 
finance should not be the main criterion in determining 
whether projects are to be included in the network. 
Criteria relating more closely to target groups and to 
the degree of technical, pedagogical or organizational 
innovation should also be applied. Projects aimed at 
helping disadvantaged young people or bringing women 
back into the labour market should receive especially 
sympathetic attention, as should demonstration pro-
30. 12. 89 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 329/29 
jects concerned with the work requirements of large 
groups of employees and workers at different company 
levels. The basic transferability of projects must also 
be borne in mind as a criterion. ogies at the workplace, but also to training measures 
which are primarily concerned with the impact of these 
new technologies on work organization, and more gen­
erally with the consequent changes in work require­
ments. 
2.6. In deciding which demonstration projects to sel­
ect, attention should be paid not only to projects which 
deal with the application of new information technol-2.7. The interim and final reports on EUROTEC-
NET II (referred to in Article 9) must also be submitted 
to the ESC. 
Done at Brussels, 18 October 1989. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Alberto MASPRONF 
Opinion on the revised proposal for a Council Decision amending Decision 87/327/EEC of 
15 June 1987 adopting the European Community action scheme for the mobility of university 
students (ERASMUS) (]) 
(89/C 329/12) 
On 25 September 1989 the Council, acting in pursuance of Article 198 of the EEC Treaty, 
asked the Economic and Social Committee for an Opinion on the abovementioned revised 
proposal. 
The Committee instructed its Section for Social, Family, Educational and Cultural Affairs 
to prepare its Opinion. The Section adopted its Opinion on 12 October 1989. The Rapporteur 
was Mr Nierhaus. 
The Committee adopted unanimously the Opinion set out below at its 270th plenary session 
(meeting of 18 October). 
1. General comments 
1.1. The ERASMUS programme is of prime import­
ance for a variety of reasons, namely it: 
— promotes the development of students' personalities 
by bringing them into contact with people in the 
EC Member States and their respective living con­
ditions, 
— promotes among students the necessary understand­
ing of the economic, cultural and social environment 
(') OJ No C 150, 17. 6. 1989, p. 10 and OJ No C 232, 9. 9. 1989, 
p. 63. and of the specific characteristics of the various 
Member States and regions of the Community, 
— strengthens cooperation between the people of the 
various Member States with the aim of consolidat­
ing the concept of a People's Europe, 
— ties in directly and recognizably, via measures to 
promote mobility, with the interests and needs of 
individual young people for improving their future 
vocational prospects; these measures are to be seen 
against the background of the need for EC activity 
to be directly relevant to Community citizens, an 
aspect not always recognized by many of its people, 
— boosts the Community's worldwide competitiveness 
by enhancing its intellectual potential by virtue of