The Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth is a member of the European Commission.
Contents
The portfolio is responsible for policies in education and training, youth, sport, civil society, culture, translation, interpretation and relations with the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
History of the portfolio
Commissioner Ján Figeľ was approved by the European Parliament in 2004 as the European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism. This was enlarged since the Prodi Commission with the addition of training and multilingualism (The Directorate-General is still just Directorate-General for Education and Culture).
However, when Romania joined the European Union on 1 January 2007, responsibility for multilingualism was handed over to the new Romanian commissioner, Leonard Orban. In its place the portfolio now also includes youth, sport and civil society. Figeľ describes his position is very orientated to "the citizens and their quality of life".
The Commission has become increasingly active in education. The ERASMUS programme, which was established in 1987, is a student exchange programme promoting mobility of students between European universities. The Bologna process aims to create a European Higher Education Area where academic qualifications can be recognised across Europe. The European Institute of Technology is a proposed research university.
With the 2014 inauguration of the Juncker Commission, the portfolio was once again renamed – multilingualism was removed from the name in favor of sport. The current title therefore is European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport.
List of commissioners
The previous portfolio to the current was Culture, merged with Audiovisual policy and EP relations.