Cyprus is exercising the rotating Presidency of the EU Council since the first of January 2026 and skills and vocational training are central to its plans for the next six months.
The Presidency of Cyprus has in fact announced that it will push forward the political commitment of all EU Member-States to work towards better basic skills, because the competitiveness of European industry, the strategic autonomy, depends on the availability of well-equipped workers, well-equipped citizens”.
Following a meeting with the Ministers of Cyprus the Vice-President of the European Commission submitted a proposal that a “citizenship skill” is added in a set of basic skills. “Reading, literacy, mathematics, science, digital skills are important, but we need to have a foundational citizenship basic skill. We work with Member-States so together we align towards this ambition and I think that with the Cypriot Presidency this will be also a priority,” the Vice-President noted.
She also referred to the Commission’s ambition to have a more STEM-oriented skills programs. “STEM means technology, means engineering, means talent that is required for our competitiveness. It’s a challenge for many Member-States. We want to have STEM targets so that we measure the ambition that we have in terms of how many graduates, how many students, pupils go towards STEM education pathways. This is an important ambition which we shared”, she added.
Cyprus and the European Commission also underlined that they put emphasis in vocational training. Next year the European Commission will present an action plan, a strategy on European vocational training. “We need to increase the prestige, the attractiveness and the inclusiveness of vocational training. We worked together two weeks ago in the Danish Presidency where we adopted the Declaration of Herning, where all Member-States said “yes we need more and better, more attractive vocational training”, the Commission’s Vice-President highlighted.
The European Commission, through Erasmus and other programs that finance education, wants to improve the attractiveness of vocational training, Vice-President Mînzatu continued, noting that “we want to prepare the vocational training European degree. We want VET (Vocational Education and Training) graduates as trainees in the European Commission. So we want to work on that as well.”