Image: Walter Isack [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Education commissioner pitches 10 per cent goal for €672.5 billion post-pandemic fund
European education commissioner Mariya Gabriel has said it would be “more than useful” if EU countries spend 10 per cent of the EU’s €672.5 billion pandemic recovery funding on education.
EU countries must submit Recovery and Resilience Plans detailing how they want to spend their share of the money, which comes from the €750bn Next Generation EU fund, to the European Commission for approval.
The fund’s rules demand that member states spend at least 37 per cent of the money on fighting climate change and at least 20 per cent on digitisation.
In the 13 May article on the Euractiv news site, Gabriel (pictured), part of the centre-right European People’s Party group, and Victor Negrescu, a Romanian MEP from the centre-left Socialists and Democrats, wrote that “quality digital education” requires adequate methods, tools, resources and content as well as investment in their ongoing development.
“Designing how we want Europe to look and act in the years to come can only be successful if we invest more in quality education and training,” they said. “Allocating 10 per cent for education could be more than useful.”
National governments in the Council of the EU and the Commission will judge whether the plans meet overall and country-specific criteria.
The Commission said on 12 May it had received 15 plans so far and will “continue to engage intensively” with those countries that have not yet sent in their plans.