REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE on the European Training Foundation
Date: 2012-10-15
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: European Training Foundation, cooperation in the field of education, vocational training

EUROPEAN 
COMMISSION 

Brussels, 15.10.2012  
COM(2012) 588 final 

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE 
COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE 

on the European Training Foundation 

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REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE 
COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE 

on the European Training Foundation 

INTRODUCTION 

This  report  is  being  presented  under  Article  24  of  the  Council  Regulation  establishing  the 
European Training Foundation (hereafter ETF) which requires that the Commission conducts 
every  four  years  an  evaluation  of  the  implementation  of  the  Council  Regulation,  the  results 
obtained  by  the  Foundation  and  its  working  methods  and  that  the  Commission  presents  the 
results of the evaluation to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic 
and Social Committee. The last external evaluation was completed in 2006 and resulted in a 
Commission  Communication  to  the  European  Parliament,  the  Council  and  the  European 
Economic and Social Committee1. 

The  present  report  provides  an  overview  of  experience  acquired  by  the  work  of  the 
Foundation  between  2006  and  20102.  It  takes  into  account  changes  in  the  role,  the 
geographical coverage, the European Union's external relations environment and the activities 
of the Foundation since 2006. As its basis, the report draws on the findings, conclusions and 
recommendations  of  the  independent  evaluator's  report  provided  by  Public  Policy  and 
Management  Institute  -  (PPMI),  the  external  contractor  (see  section  2).  The  Commission's 
experience in activities and cooperation with the Foundation has also been taken into account, 
as have the recommendations made by the Commission in its 2006 Communication. It should 
be noted that the report has been drawn up jointly by all services of the Commission working 
with  the  Foundation,  namely  DGs  Education  and  Culture  (as  the  responsible  DG), 
Enlargement, and Development and Cooperation, and in consultation with all services of the 
Commission  working  with  the  Foundation  as  well  as  with  the  European  External  Action 
Service. 

This report addresses the following topics: 

1. 

2. 

3. 

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2 

Evolution of the Foundation from 2006 to 2010 

Overview of the external evaluation process 

Main recommendations of the external evaluation report 

3.1  Organisational, thematic and procedural changes 
3.2  Relevance 
3.3  Coherence 
3.4  Effectiveness 
3.5 
3.6  Efficiency and cost effectiveness 

Impact and added value 

COM(2006) 832 fina 19.12.2006 
The evaluation process was launched at the end of 2010 and the final report was issued on 8/02/2012; it 
can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/evalreports/training/2012/etf_en.pdf  

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4. 

Conclusion 

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1. 

EVOLUTION OF THE FOUNDATION FROM 2006 TO 2010 

1.1. 

Legal basis 

The Foundation is a European Union Agency legally established by Council Regulation (EEC) 
no. 1360/90 of 7 May 1990 establishing a European Training Foundation, which entered into 
force  in  October  1993  when  the  European  Council  decided  on  Turin  as  the  seat  of  the 
Foundation. Its mission is to help transition and developing countries to harness the potential 
of their human capital through the reform of education, training and labour market systems in 
the  context  of  the  EU's  external  relations  policy.  In  2008,  the  Foundation's  mandate  was 
reformulated  in  a  holistic  manner  to  encompass  a  broader  perspective  of  human  capital 
development  and  lifelong  learning.  Therefore,  the  EU  regulation  governing  the  ETF  was 
recast3,  creating  a  new  mandate  for  the  ETF  to  address  human  capital  development  issues, 
which  widened  its  formal  scope  beyond  vocational  education  and  training  to  include  issues 
such  as  labour  market  needs  and  enterprise  development.  In  addition,  the  new  mandate 
allowed for the geographic scope of the ETF to be expanded if necessary. The new regulation 
did not include any programme management functions for the ETF, consolidating its role as a 
centre of policy expertise in human capital development for EU external policies. As a result, 
the ETF undertook significant reform of its internal structures starting in 2008. Most recently, 
the Operations Department was split into three separate departments – the Thematic Expertise 
Development Department, the Geographical Operations Department and the Evidence-based 
Policy Making Department.  

1.2. 

Subsidy 

A  key  part  of  evolution  of  the  Foundation  from  1997  to  the  present  has  been  the  level  and 
nature  of  its  subsidy.  This  comes  from  the  external  relations  chapter  of  the  European  Union 
budget  and,  since  2000,  has  been  split  between  two  budget  lines  -  one  from  DG  External 
Relations  (B7-664)  and  one  from  DG  Enlargement  (B7-033).  The  subsidy  drawn  from  B7-
664  is  itself  drawn  from  the  budgetary  envelopes  of  the  3  external  relations  programmes 
relating  to  the  geographical  regions  of  the  Foundation's  mandate,  namely  the  Western 
Balkans, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the Mediterranean. 

The level of subsidy for each year in the period 2000-2004 was planned in November 2000 
under  the  Governing  Board  agreement  on  the  mid-term  perspectives,  subject  to  the  annual 
budgetary procedure. This subsidy, constituting almost exclusively the Foundation's revenue, 
serves  to  fund  the  Foundation's  personnel  (Title  1),  its  infrastructure  and  running  costs  and 
overheads ensuing from the execution of statutory tasks (Title 2) and operational expenditure 
relating to its specific missions (Title 3). 

The  table  below  shows  the  evolution  of  the  subsidy  from  1998-2012  including  the 
modification  of  the source  of the subsidy away from Phare towards  the other  regions under 
the  external  relations  framework  and  the  inclusion  in  title  15  Education  and  culture  (from 
2006 onwards) and under Heading 4 European Union as a Global Partner from 2008 onwards. 
Annexes 2 and 3 show the full budget evolution (including funds committed, carried over and 

3 

Regulation (EC) No 1339/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 
establishing a European Training Foundation (recast) – OJ L 354, 31.12.2008, p. 82 

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unused) and the Activity Based-Budgets 2000-2004, to illustrate in a more representative way 
how funds have been allocated. 

While  for  the  years  1998  to  2007  the  budget  is  divided  into  two  lines  corresponding  to 
external relations policies and instruments (in summary, Relex and Enlargement, despite there 
being a change in the budget line code for 2006 and 2007) from 2008 onwards the two lines 
are directly related to the ETF distribution by titles (15 02 27 01 for title 1 and 2 and 15 02 27 
02  for  title  3).  From  2006  onwards  the  subsidy  budget  line  code  starts  with  15  xx,  which 
corresponds  to  Education  and  Culture.  As  concerns  the  staff,  the  gradual  reduction  in  the 
number  of  temporary  agents  in  the  Establishment  Plan,  since  2006,  has  been  compensated 
with an increased number of Contract Agents. The total number of posts has remained stable 
at 135. 

Year 

1998 

1999 

2000 

2001 

2002 

2003 

2004 

2005 

2006 

European Union subsidy 

Number of staff temporary agents 

15.4m 

16.2m 

16.2m 

16.8m 

B7-664: 9.24m  

B7-033: 7.56m

16.8m 

B7-664: 12.8m  

B7-033: 4 0m
17.2m 

B7-664: 13.7m 

В7 033: 3 5m
17.6m 

B7-664: 15.1m 

B7-033: 2.5m 

18.5m 

B7-664: 16m 

B7-033: 2.5m 

19.45m 

15-03-02: 2.95m 

15 03 03: 16 5m

119 

124 

119 

115 

105 

104 

104 

104 

105 

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2007 

19.7m 

100 

2008 

2009 

2010 

2011 

2012 

15-03-27-01: 15.6m 

15 03 27 02: 4 1m
17.98m 

15-02-27-01: 14.59m 

15 02 27 02: 3 39m
14.77m + 5.10m = 19.87m 

15-02-27-01: 15.57m 

15-02-27-02: 4 30m
18.28m + 0.71m = 19.99m 

15-02-27-01: 15.93m 

15 02 27 02: 4 06m
20.35m 

15-02-27-01: 14.33m 

15 02 27 02: 6 02m
20.04m 

15-02-27-01: 15.08m 

15 02 27 02: 4 96m

96 

96 

96 

96 

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2. 

OVERVIEW OF THE EXTERNAL EVALUATION PROCESS 

As  stipulated  by  Article  24  of  the  founding  Regulation  (recast)  of  2008,  the  Commission's 
procedure of monitoring and evaluation of the Foundation should be carried out with the help 
of external experts, with the first results of this procedure to be submitted in a report to the 
European  Parliament,  the  Council,  and  the  European  Economic  and  Social  Committee.  In 
March 2011, DG Education and Culture contracted PPMI to carry out an independent external 
evaluation  of  ETF.  This  was  based  on  terms  of  reference  agreed  between  the  Commission 
services  and  with  the  Governing  Board.  A  Steering  Committee  was  established,  chaired  by 
DG  Education  and  Culture  with  representatives  from  DGs  Education  and  Culture,  External 
Relations, Enterprise, Europe Aid, and the Foundation. 

The external evaluator used several methodological tools. Three separate but complementary 
surveys were carried out, focusing on two groups of beneficiaries (partner countries and the 
European  External  Action  Service/European  Commission)  and  a  survey  of  ETF  operations 
expert personnel that provide services to beneficiaries. Included in the surveys was a question 
asking  respondents  to  identify  their  most  important  contacts  in  the  field  of  human  capital 
development.  With  these  data,  social  network  analysis  was  used  to  construct  a  network  of 
actors involved in the field of human capital development at the European and partner country 
level  in  order  to  provide  insight  into  the  nature  of  relations  between  the  ETF  and  its 
beneficiaries.  Interviews  were  carried  out  in  partner  countries,  the  ETF,  the  European 
Commission and the European External Action Service. Moreover, in-depth case studies were 
undertaken  in  four  countries  representing  the  four  regions  targeted  by  different  EU  external 
policy instruments and ETF actions. Finally, a modified cost-effectiveness analysis was used 

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that  focused  on  the  immediate  ETF  outputs  and  their  costs  obtained  from  corporate 
performance data.  

The external evaluator submitted three reports to the Commission: their inception report was 
accepted  on  29  June  2011,  their  interim  report  on  3  October  2011  and  their  final  report  on  8 
February 2012. The Governing Board discussed the final report, focusing in particular on the 
executive summary, at its meeting of June 2012. 

3. 

MAIN RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE EXTERNAL EVALUATION REPORT  

The  Commission  invites  the  ETF  to  analyse  and  act  upon  all  of  the  evaluator's 
recommendations.  To  contribute  to  this,  the  Commission  summarises  and  analyses  below 
those findings, conclusions and recommendations of the evaluator which, in its view, deserve 
highlighting.  In  addition,  the  Commission  gives,  where  appropriate,  specific  details  or 
proposals for implementing the recommendations. 

3.1. 

Organisational, thematic and procedural changes 

The evaluator underlined that the ETF underwent significant change during the last five years. 
Since  the  2008  recast  of  the  ETF  mandate,  there  has  been  significant  organisational  and 
operational  reform.  Key  among  these  changes  is  the  introduction  of  the  Torino  process 
whereby the ETF aims to more accurately and easily identify, enumerate and address human 
capital  development  issues  in  partner  countries  and  develop  their  capacities  for  evidence-
based policy making. Even though only one year's reports were available for this evaluation, 
the evaluators viewed the Torino process outcomes favourably.  

3.2. 

Relevance 

The  evaluator  found  ETF's  to  be  relevant  both  thematically  and  procedurally  to  beneficiary 
needs and that it managed to strike a good balance between flexibility and strategic planning. 
However, the evaluator stressed that the ETF should be more proactive in clarifying its role to 
stakeholders with whom they work and the ways in which the ETF can provide support. The 
ETF  has  performed  very  well  in  developing  human  capital  development  policy  but 
beneficiaries are not always aware of this impact and should be made aware of ETF's success 
and impact, e.g. a clear description of areas in which ETF can provide support. 

Moreover,  it  is  noted  that  the  ETF  role  is  clearly  defined  at  the  policy  level  and  with  state 
level actors. However, the ETF role vis-à-vis social partners and NGO need to be clarified. 

3.3. 

Coherence 

The  evaluators  found  ETF  actions  to  be  internally  coherent,  as  well  as  being  coherent  with 
broader EU objectives, notably in EU external relations, and most partner country objectives. 
However,  it  was  found  that  there  was  no  clear  hierarchy  between  strategic  and  operational 
ETF objectives in mid-term perspectives and annual work plans. 

Therefore,  it  is  recommended  that  the  annual  work  programmes  and  country  plans  identify 
specific  areas  of  action  (both  thematically  and  procedurally)  and  clearly  state  how  these 
actions contribute to wider strategic objectives of the ETF.  

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3.4. 

Effectiveness 

The  evaluator  found  ETF  to  be  highly  effective  in  its  main  roles  of  providing  and 
disseminating information, analysis, and policy advice, capacity building and networking and 
knowledge transfer. 

Information dissemination has evolved over the evaluation period and is now making greater 
use  of  social  media  and  online  opportunities  to  share  information.  However  not  all 
stakeholder  groups  are  clear  on  the  nature  of  ETF  information  and  action.  Therefore,  in 
particular with stakeholder groups more recently engaged by the ETF (i.e. social partners and 
NGO's)  a  more  proactive  approach  to  information  dissemination  should  be  undertaken  in 
order to inform these groups about the nature and extent of ETF action.  

The  ETF  was  effective  in  helping  to  develop  knowledge  and  expertise  which  could  lead  to 
greater partner country capacity in human capital development. However, it was difficult to 
distinguish how effective the ETF was in building capacity, as a picture of how ETF actions 
should  contribute  to  capacity  building  and  a  clear  definition  of  capacity  building  were  not 
established.  It  is  therefore  recommended  for  ETF  to  continue  to  work  closely  with  partner 
countries  to  develop  a  strategy  for  how  ETF  actions  and  knowledge  development  can  be 
utilized to improve capacity and increase partner country ownership over the policy process. 

Finally,  the  evaluators  stressed  that  the  ETF  performed  most  strongly  in  networking  and 
knowledge  transfer  and  that  these  activities  were  highly  valued  by  beneficiaries.  Regional 
networks  were  especially  valued.  In  that  context,  the  reorganization  and  the  creation  of 
separate  thematic  and  geographic  departments  offers  potential  to  strengthen  further  regional 
initiatives  in  terms  of  networking  and  policy  learning  between  stakeholders.  These  regional 
networks should continue to be developed in the future to the greatest extent possible. 

3.5. 

Impact and Added Value 

The  evaluator  found  ETF  to  perform  very  well,  in  particular  given  its  wide  mandate  and 
limited resources. It is recommended for ETF to maintain consistency at the partner country 
level  by  matching  staff  skills  with  particular  thematic  and  geographic  areas.  Country 
managers should therefore be rotated infrequently in order to allow them to build up sufficient 
knowledge and connections at the partner country level. 

3.6. 

Efficiency and Cost Effectiveness 

The evaluators found ETF to have a system of useful performance indicators which should be 
kept stable to enable measuring the progress of the organization over the years. However, the 
existing  indicators  focus  solely  on  immediate  outputs.  The  indicators  should  therefore  be 
extended  to  incorporate  results  level  indicators,  e.g.  partner  country  beneficiary  satisfaction 
with services provided by ETF. 

It  was  found  that  ETF  is  cost-effective  in  its  work.  Given  its  vast  thematic  mandate,  large 
geographical area and relatively modest budget, the ETF has proven to be flexible in the past 
in  deploying  its  support  where  EU  institutions  and  Governing  Board  deemed  it  most 
necessary.  

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4. 

CONCLUSION 

The  Commission  considers  that  within  the  Union's  external  relations  policy  framework,  the 
ETF  has  a  useful  contribution  to  make  as  a  centre  of  expertise  in  all  four  regions  of  its 
mandate. 

The Commission considers that the ETF has indeed been able to successfully reorganize and 
refocus its activities. The Commission shares the evaluator's overall positive assessment of the 
effectiveness  of  the  Foundation's  work  in  its  main  roles  of  providing  and  disseminating 
information,  analysis,  and  policy  advice,  capacity  building  and  networking  and  knowledge 
transfer.  The  ETF  has  also  taken  up  the  challenge  of  its  recast  mandate  for  considerable 
internal reforms. However, it is recommended for ETF to be more proactive in disseminating 
information to relatively new stakeholders. In the field of capacity building, the ETF should 
work closely with partner countries to develop a strategy for how ETF actions and knowledge 
development can be utilized to improve capacity and increase partner country ownership over 
the  policy  process.  Finally  ETF's  focus  on  the  development  of  regional  networks  should  be 
further strengthened. 

Moreover, the Commission stresses the relevance of ETF's activities to beneficiary needs but 
agrees  with  the  evaluator  that  a  more  proactive  approach  in  clarifying  ETF's  role  to 
stakeholders is wanted as well as a clearer definition of its role vis-à-vis social partners and 
NGOs.  While  ETF's  actions  were  found  to  be  coherent,  the  Commission  agrees  with  the 
evaluators  in  underlining  the  need  to  explain  in  the  annual  work  programmes  and  country 
plans how specific actions contribute to wider strategic objectives of the ETF.  

Finally the Commission shares the evaluators' positive assessment of ETF's added value and 
cost-effectiveness, in particular given its wide mandate and extensive geographic coverage. 

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