2006. vol. 1. No. 5

The paper looks into the outcomes of the first cycle of the Education and Training 2010 programme in the context of historical analysis of education policy development in the EU. The author concludes that over the years of its development an institutional framework has been created for the European education policy which includes a decentralized system of governance and information and methodological support; statistical data and coordination procedures; shared objectives as reflected in the Education and Training 2010 programme, benchmarks for implementation and inbuilt mechanisms for monitoring and peer review. The analysis confirms that similar mechanisms are employed within the Bologna process though the OMC is not a formally accepted mode of coordination within the European Higher Education Area.

The analysis hypothesizes that EU education policy agenda will continue to deepen and expand remaining under the subsidiarity principle with the European Commission and European Agencies as important drivers of the process. The study also makes a positivist proposition that the OMC tools in the area of Education policy have a high capacity for strengthening both the horizontal and hierarchical the interaction and shaping convergence of decisions and actions within the next decade.