Fact Sheets on the European Union
European Parliament
Please fill this field

Vocational training

In accordance with the subsidiarity principle, primary responsibility for vocational education and training policies lies with the Member States, with the European Union having only a supporting role. However, some challenges are common to all Member States – green and digital transitions, skills shortages and mismatches in the labour market – and thus call for joint responses, with countries working together and learning from each other.

Legal basis

Articles 9 and 166 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and Article 14 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Objectives

Vocational education and training (VET) prepares people for work and develops citizens’ skills to enable them to remain employable and respond to the needs of the economy. The responsibility for VET lies primarily with the Member States, the EU playing a supporting role. Vocational training was identified as an area of Community action in the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and education was formally recognised as an area of EU competence in the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. The horizontal ‘social clause’, Article 9 TFEU, states that, in defining and implementing its policies and activities, the Union needs to take into account requirements linked to a high level of education and training, among other requirements. Article 166 TFEU further lays down that ‘the Union shall implement a vocational training policy which shall support and supplement the action of the Member States, while fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States for the content and organisation of vocational training’. Moreover, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that ‘everyone has the right to education and to have access to continuing and vocational training’ (Article 14).

Achievements

A. EU strategies and action plans

While the EU’s competence in VET is limited, several EU strategies and action plans aim to improve the provision of VET and skills in the EU. The European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR), adopted in 2017, sets out 20 key principles to guide renewed convergence in the employment and social spheres. The first principle states that everyone has the right to quality and inclusive education, training and lifelong learning ‘in order to maintain and acquire skills that enable them to participate fully in society and manage successfully transitions in the labour market’. The 2021 EPSR action plan sets out concrete initiatives to turn the EPSR into reality and proposes headline targets for the EU by 2030, including the participation of at least 60% of all adults in training every year. EU employment and social affairs ministers presented their related national targets on 16 June 2022.

The European Education Area is the shared vision of the Member States and the European Commission for the future of the education and training sector. Its focus areas for cooperation include VET, with the aim of increasing the exposure of VET graduates to work-based learning and increasing the participation of adults in learning.

The digital education action plan 2021-2027, adopted in 2020, sets out two strategic priorities and 14 actions towards high-quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in the EU, and aims to support the adaptation of the education and training systems of the Member States to the digital era and to increase participation in digital skills training. The Digital Decade policy programme guides the EU’s digital transformation, with concrete targets and objectives for 2030 in four key areas, including a digitally skilled population and highly skilled digital professionals, with a target of 20 million information and communications technology (ICT) specialists, with gender convergence, and of at least 80% of the population to have basic digital skills.

The latest European skills agenda, adopted in 2020, building on the previous agenda of 2016, contains 12 actions related to skills for jobs, to ensure that the right to training and lifelong learning is fulfilled across Europe. The Commission’s ‘Labour and Skills Shortages in the EU: An action plan’, adopted in 2024, builds on policy and funding measures already in place at the EU level, such as the Pact for Skills. As a follow-up to the Val Duchesse Social Partners Summit of January 2024, the plan sets out actions in five areas to be implemented at the EU, national and social partners’ levels, including providing support for skills development, training and education.

The Union of Skills, adopted in 2025, is an overarching strategy with the following main strands:

  • Build skills for quality jobs and lives through a strong educational foundation, with an inclusive lifelong learning approach;
  • Upskill and reskill an agile workforce mastering the digital and green transition, particularly those with lower and middle skills;
  • Circulate skills with the free movement of people across the EU;
  • Attract, develop and retain talent.

The key deliverables of this strategy include:

  • A European strategy for VET [2026];
  • Piloting of a skills guarantee for workers [2025];
  • Roll-out of targeted EU skills academies, following a review of current ones [2026];
  • A skills portability initiative [2026];
  • Piloting of a European VET diploma [2025-2026].
  • An action plan on basic skills;
  • A STEM education strategic plan.

B. Council recommendations

Respecting Member States’ competence in the area of VET, non-binding Council recommendations set out a common approach and principles for a future-proof, quality VET system. The 2020 Council recommendation on VET specifies key principles for ensuring that VET is agile, adapts swiftly to labour market needs and provides quality learning opportunities for all age groups. It replaces two recommendations, dating back to 2009, on a European quality assurance reference framework for VET (EQAVET) and on the European credit system for VET (ECVET). The 2020 Council recommendation on VET includes an updated EQAVET framework with quality indicators and descriptors to support Member States in improving the quality of their VET systems. The recommendation also calls on the Commission to ‘explore the concept and use of micro-credentials’. A micro-credential is a record of the learning outcomes acquired following a small volume of learning. It does not replace traditional qualifications but allows for targeted, flexible acquisition of skills to meet new and emerging needs. The Council recommendation on a European approach to micro-credentials, adopted in June 2022, seeks to facilitate the use of micro-credentials. The Council recommendation on individual learning accounts intends to support Member States’ initiatives to enable more working-age adults to participate in training and reduce skills gaps. 

The Council recommendation on tracking graduates (a person completing any level of higher education or VET), adopted in November 2017, seeks to enable policymakers and stakeholders to enhance the employability of graduates, address skills gaps and mismatches and ensure social inclusion, as well as to facilitate informed choices about potential career paths for future students. Graduate tracking is a key source of information feeding into skills governance systems. In their conclusions of December 2024, EU ministers called for stronger upskilling and reskilling, and for lifelong learning opportunities to facilitate adaptation to the changing needs of the labour market.

C. Cooperation and awareness-raising activities

In the Copenhagen Process, initiated in 2002, EU Member States, EU candidate countries, non-EU countries in the European Economic Area (EEA), and European social partners cooperate to improve the performance, quality and attractiveness of VET. This cooperation has been developed over the years through a series of declarations. The current Herning Declaration, formally adopted on 12 September 2025, builds on the previous Osnabrück Declaration (2020) as the guiding framework for VET cooperation in Europe for the period 2026-2030.

The declaration sets out a renewed vision for vocational education and training across Europe with four key pillars:

  • Attractiveness & inclusiveness – making VET a more appealing choice for young people and adults, and ensuring access for all, including under-represented or disadvantaged groups.
  • Relevance to the labour market – aligning VET systems more closely with labour market needs, addressing skills shortages and equipping learners for the green and digital transitions.
  • Mobility, cooperation and the cross-border dimension – strengthening international cooperation, learner mobility and the use of common EU tools for transparency and recognition of qualifications.
  • Quality, innovation and resilience – enhancing learning environments, supporting lifelong learning, deploying emerging technologies responsibly (e.g. artificial intelligence) and responding to demographic change.

The declaration is supported by the European-level VET providers’ associations and representatives of VET students. In 2022, countries participating in the Copenhagen Process submitted their National Implementation Plans (NIPs) for the Council recommendation on VET and/or the Osnabrück Declaration. Monitoring of the NIPs is undertaken by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) and the European Training Foundation (ETF), two EU agencies in the field of VET, in cooperation with the European Commission. In its 2024 action plan on labour and skills shortages, the Commission committed to working with Member States and social partners to adopt a new declaration on VET in 2025 to continue the Copenhagen Process.

The European Alliance for Apprenticeships, created in 2013, is a stakeholder cooperation platform to enhance the quality, availability and attractiveness of apprenticeships and encourage the mobility of apprentices in the EU, as well as in countries in the European Free Trade Association and EU candidate countries, via national commitments and voluntary pledges from stakeholders.

In another form of cooperation, the Blueprint Alliances, introduced in 2016 and financed by Erasmus+, stakeholders work together in sector-specific partnerships to develop and implement strategies to address skills gaps in these sectors. They develop occupational profiles, vocational programmes and qualifications, design a long-term action plan and promote the use of related EU tools. Under the 2021-2027 Erasmus+, this initiative continues through the Alliances for Innovation (Lot 2: Alliances for sectoral cooperation on skills).

The Pact for Skills, launched in 2020 as one of the flagship actions of the European skills agenda, supports public and private organisations with upskilling and reskilling in the context of the green and digital transitions. In the Union of Skills strategy, the Commission called for the pact to be reinforced to tackle the fragmentation of initiatives and improve linkages between them, such as the EU skills academies, the European Alliance for Apprenticeships, the Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs) and European Universities alliances. It also called on pact members to double, at least, their commitments to upskill 25 million workers by 2030. The CoVEs, funded by Erasmus+, bring together local partners to develop skills ecosystems, contributing to regional, economic and social development, innovation, and smart specialisation strategies.

The Community of European VET practitioners aims at strengthening the VET community across the EU, helping practitioners such as teachers, trainers and in-company tutors to be informed on policy initiatives at the European level and to cooperate among themselves, focusing on online learning, green skills, social inclusion and learner mobility.

The European Year of Skills (May 2023 to May 2024) aimed to address skills shortages, promote a mindset of reskilling and upskilling and help people get the right skills for quality jobs. More than 2 000 events on skills development took place across Europe, contributing to a high level of awareness on skills-related themes.

D. EU agencies

Cedefop is one of more than 30 decentralised agencies of the EU. Founded in 1975 and based in Greece since 1995, it supports the promotion, development and implementation of VET, skills and qualifications policies in the EU. It enhances and disseminates knowledge, delivers research-based evidence and services for policymaking, and facilitates knowledge sharing among EU and national actors. It has developed EU-wide approaches to understanding current, and anticipating future, skills demand and supply.

The ETF, another decentralised EU agency, founded in 1994 and based in Turin, assists 29 partner countries (in south-eastern Europe and Türkiye, eastern Europe, the southern and eastern Mediterranean and central Asia) to reform and improve their VET and labour market systems.

E. Funding

The EU supports VET mainly with funding under the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) 3.6.2 and Erasmus+. In the early years, up until 1970, the ESF reimbursed Member States 50% of the costs of vocational training and resettlement allowances for workers affected by economic restructuring. It assisted more than two million people during this period. Its tasks and operational rules have since been revised and complementary EU instruments have been integrated. As a result, the ESF+ has become the main EU instrument for investing in people. The total budget for the ESF+ in the current programming period 2021-2027 amounts to almost EUR 99.3 billion. The specific objectives of the ESF+ include:

  • Improving the quality, inclusiveness, effectiveness and labour market relevance of education and training systems, including through validation of non-formal and informal learning;
  • Promoting equal access to and completion of quality and inclusive education and training, in particular for disadvantaged groups, including facilitating learning mobility for all and accessibility for persons with disabilities;
  • Promoting lifelong learning, in particular flexible upskilling and reskilling opportunities for all, taking into account entrepreneurial and digital skills, better anticipating change and new skills requirements based on labour market needs, facilitating career transitions and promoting professional mobility.

Member States with a high average share of young people (aged 15 to 29) who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs), are required to spend 12.5% of their ESF+ resources under shared management on supporting youth employment, VET, the transition from school to work, pathways to reintegrate into education or training and second chance education, in particular in the context of implementing schemes under the Youth Guarantee.

The Erasmus+ programme has a budget of EUR 26.6 billion for the period 2021-2027 (compared to EUR 14.7 billion in the previous period). It supports, through lifelong learning, the educational, professional and personal development of people in the fields of education and training, youth and sport, and it promotes learning mobility. The current edition seeks to increase its reach to people with disabilities, disadvantaged economic backgrounds and/or educational difficulties, as well as to those living in rural and remote areas. Each year, more than 130 000 VET learners and apprentices, as well as 20 000 VET staff benefit from Erasmus+ mobility opportunities. The programme also funds CoVEs, Alliances for Innovation, cooperation partnerships, capacity-building projects with non-EU countries, and forward-looking projects in the field of VET. In the Commission’s political guidelines 2024-2029, the Commission President committed to strengthening Erasmus+, including for vocational training, and to increasing the number of people benefiting from the programme.

Role of the European Parliament

Parliament has always been vocal on the need to improve the VET system and the provision of skills and to adapt them to the changing labour market. In its 2020 resolution on the Council recommendation on VET, Parliament called for the modernisation of VET policies, increased resources for the digitalisation of VET programmes, and for work-based learning to be among the priorities of the Erasmus+ programme. In its resolution of 25 March 2021 on shaping digital education policy, it recalled the vital role of VET and adult education in providing reskilling and upskilling opportunities through a lifelong learning approach. It also called on the Commission to adopt a holistic approach to VET and adult learning, encompassing formal, non-formal and informal learning and enabling learners to acquire a diverse range of skills that are important for the digital and green transitions. Moreover, it called for appropriate solutions and proper funding for effective delivery of VET. In its 2022 resolution on establishing the European Education Area by 2025, Parliament welcomed the Commission’s proposals to develop a European approach to micro-credentials, individual learning accounts and learning for environmental sustainability.

In its 2023 resolution on proposals of the European Parliament for the amendment of the Treaties, Parliament called for the EU to develop common standards on vocational training to increase the mobility of workers. In the same year, Parliament, in its resolution on fostering and adapting vocational training, stressed the need to provide VET to adults at an individual level and invest in infrastructure, teacher training, and quality assurance of continuing VET. It also called on the Member States to develop curricula focused on occupations that have to adapt to the green and digital transitions. Moreover, it underlined the importance of increasing support for women’s participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and VET, and it highlighted the key role of the social partners with regard to VET. It called on the Commission and the Member States to work towards greater convergence between national VET systems and pointed out that efficient VET systems require the development of systematic strategies and adequate resources, aligned with skills strategies. It also highlighted the importance of VET for persons with disabilities and learning difficulties. It stressed the need to provide VET opportunities for all, in particular for NEETs, early school leavers, older workers, adults with a low level of skills, and jobseekers, as well as people from remote and rural areas and people belonging to marginalised groups.

In its 2024 resolution on the implementation of the Erasmus+ programme, Parliament welcomed the newly established CoVEs, and called for a holistic educational approach within these centres and for them to be made the driving force behind the development of joint European VET qualifications, curricula and diplomas. It advocated the recognition of VET as a path of equal value to academic studies. Moreover, it drew attention to the remaining obstacles to seamless VET mobility, such as policies that are fragmented between national and EU levels. It called on the Member States to develop synergies between Erasmus+ and other funding programmes to facilitate learning mobility. It also stressed the need to accelerate synergies between the European Education Area, the digital education action plan and the European skills agenda in shaping a digital education policy.

In February 2025, Members of the European Parliament discussed with the Commission and the Council how to adapt VET to the changing labour market and in March 2025, they exchanged views on the Union of Skills initiative. In its June 2025 resolution on the Clean Industrial Deal, Parliament underlined that the success of the clean industrial transition hinged on a skilled workforce and supported the swift deployment of centres of vocational excellence to support the targeted up- and reskilling of workers.

For more information on this topic, please see the website of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.

 

Victor Manuel Martinez Garzon