One year of the Union of Skills: continued investment in education, training and skills remains essential

In March 2025, the European Commission launched its Communication on the Union of Skills, which announced increased investment in skills and education. Since then, the Commission has rolled out a series of strategic measures to enhance Europe’s global competitiveness and resilience. These include the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action ‘Choose Europe’ Pilot and the EU’s new Visa Strategy to attract and retain top students and researchers. In addition, the STEM Education Strategic Plan, which aims to foster excellence in STEM education and training, has been launched.

Related to this, on 9 March EU employment and social affairs ministers adopted the first ever Council recommendation on human capital, as a tool within the 2026 European Semester. It aims to provide guidance to member states on how to address skills shortages, improve tertiary education outcomes in STEM, increase public and private investment in education, training and skills and improve skills intelligence to anticipate labour market transitions and emerging professions.

As the voice of Europe’s universities, it is clear for EUA that enhanced investment in education, training and skills are an important foundation for Europe’s economic competitiveness and societal resilience. At the same time, EUA continues to advocate for a bottom-up approach that empowers universities themselves to develop long-term learning capacity and support interdisciplinary collaboration. Key actions needed to facilitate this include the establishment of a flagship EU initiative for lifelong learning, as well as a dedicated European ‘Skills Fund’.

The need for such measures is confirmed in the European ‘Joint Employment Report 2026’, which concludes that while adult learning participation has increased, the majority of member states still fall short of the ambition ‘for Europe to remain competitive, innovative and inclusive’. The report confirms the continued importance of vocational education and training (VET) and higher education degrees in ensuring employment but also raises the question of labour market relevance. This calls for better skills intelligence, including dialogue and cooperation between policy makers, employers and education providers

In this regard, EUA looks forward to contributing to the governance of the Union of Skills by representing the university sector in the recently created European Skills High-Level Board chaired by former European Commissioner Ylva Johansson.