Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Draghi Report and many other studies and documents show that, for the sake of their own job security and sense of self-worth, Europeans must have the opportunity to improve their skills and qualifications. We want them to have the conditions necessary for lifelong learning.
It is difficult to quantify these values in terms of business needs, but businesses indicate that economic competition requires a highly skilled workforce. At the same time, no European citizen should feel anxious about not knowing something or be afraid to take on new challenges.
The European Social Fund has enormous, yet still untapped, potential for providing targeted training and opportunities to improve qualifications.
Therefore, this program should continue beyond 2027 with a sufficiently large budget so that it can play a key role in equipping our society with the skills of the future.