” “"Promoting exchanges, cooperation and mobility between different educational and training systems within the EU, to turn them into worldwide quality benchmarks". This is the main goal of the EU Action Plan in education, which has been submitted for approval to the Strasbourg Parliament (to be jointly decided by the Council), which gathered today for a plenary session. In the long agenda, the Plan has been fitted into tomorrow’s schedule, with a report given by the German MEP Doris Pack. The document to be submitted to Parliament explains that the Plan intends to contribute, through "lifelong learning", to the "development of the Community as an advanced, knowledge-based society with sustainable economic growth, new and better jobs and higher social cohesion", in agreement with the goals of the Lisbon Strategy. The initiatives that the EU is approving will be enforced on January 1st 2007 to last until 2013, and can rely on a funding of about 7 billion euros. The main programs are six (Comenius, Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, Grundtvig, Trasversale and Jean Monnet) and are bound to "replace and renew all the existing ones".” “
