Comparative report

Roxana Mînzatu
Executive Vice-President for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness.

The challenges we face today are immense: geopolitical and demographic shifts, economic divides, climate pressure, rapidly evolving new technologies.

We need a Europe that understands these challenges, adapts and leads the way forward, while protecting our strong European values. Our answer to these challenges needs to remain people-centred.

We need Europeans to be both well-educated and skilled, and activity engaged in society – whether it be to advance the green and digital transitions, or counter disinformation and safeguard our democracy. This begins with having our education and training systems fit for purpose.

With this vision in mind, the Commission launched the Union of Skills in March 2025. This European-wide strategy builds upon and enhances the European Education Area, aiming to provide high-quality and relevant education, training, and lifelong learning. Our goal is to prepare people for a rapidly changing society and economy. This starts by addressing the sharp decline in basic skills among our young people. We need to recognise the daily erosion of trust in our democracies due to increasing disinformation and fake news. That is why we have proposed adding citizenship as the fifth basic skill on which to focus our efforts.

The Education and Training Monitor provides in-depth analysis and reporting on the state of education and training systems, at EU and national level, and their progress towards reaching the EU-level targets set for the European Education Area. This data and evidence is crucial to identify gaps, develop evidence-based policies and monitor progress and impact in the implementation of reforms.

This year places particular emphasis on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills that are essential to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy.

Data clearly shows that there is room for improvement – enrolment in STEM has stagnated in recent years and remains particularly low in information and communication technology, a vital sector for Europe’s tech sovereignty. Women are still underrepresented.

To address these challenges, we need to collectively take action in the earliest years of education and continue all the way through the education pathway. The same applies to basic skills development, where too many young people and adults across the EU struggle with reading, maths, science, digital and citizenship skills.

The monitor also highlights some significant successes – early childhood education is expanding, early school leaving is declining, and higher education participation has risen across the EU. But we still see disparities based on gender and socio-economic background.

Under the Union of Skills, the STEM Education Strategic Plan and the Action Plan on Basic Skills set out concrete measures to address these challenges. The European Semester Spring Package 2025 adds to this, with targeted recommendations on education and skills for all Member States.

I warmly invite policy makers, educators, researchers and stakeholders to reflect on the valuable insights provided by this monitor. The data outlined lays the foundation for the evidence-based policymaking and strategic action we need to build the Union of Skills.