Mr. Csaba Borboly, president of Harghita County Council, highlighted the elaboration of programmes aiming to offer help for regions being in particular situation, universities training in minority languages, as well as emphasizing the importance of the bidirectional nature of mobility, on the 105th Plenary Session of the Committee of the Regions, organized on 30th of January in Brussels. The president of the county council, as rapporteur of the CoR, presented the draft opinion entitled European higher education in the world, which has been unanimously accepted by the Committee of the Regions. The draft opinion was submitted on 17th of October 2013 to the Commission for Education, Youth and Research (EDUC) of the Committee of the Regions, and on 13th of November the EDUC Commission uniformly voted it.
At the beginning of the plenary session, Mr. José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission – partly warning the member states, and answering the question of Mr. Michael Schneider, the president of EPP Group in the Committee of the Regions on the other hand – said that he considers essential to have consultation between member states and local/regional governments during the elaboration of the partnership agreement. The president of the European Commission called the attention about receiving several complaints and he did not want to share his opinion publicly about the concerned member states. However, he ascertained merely that the Commission warns member states to involve local and regional governments’.
During the meeting organized on 30th of January, in his speech Mr. Csaba Borboly claimed that when elaborating the opinion an advantage was given by the fact that he is representing a multilingual region, where the higher education in minority language has a past of just a few decades. The elaboration process of the draft opinion was preceded by several consultations with: the representatives of the Romanian higher education institutions, specialists of the European Union’s institutions, the educational representative of the Lithuanian presidency of the EU, as well as with the European Commissioner for higher education.
The rapporteur stated that ’the Europe 2020 strategy pays a particular attention to the internationalisation of higher education, and accordingly encourages the elaboration of related strategies. In my opinion the EU can provide solutions for global challenges through partnerships within the field of higher education, which may increase the research and educational capacity and can become the agents of universities’ knowledge transfer.’
The opinion recommends that member states should develop such programmes, which would contribute to the internationalisation of local and regional higher education institutions in regions being in particular situation. Through a programme of this kind, the attention could be called on the importance of the bidirectional nature of mobility in order to meet the interests of origin and host regions as well. The opinion underlines that in a multi-ethnic and multilingual Europe those higher education institutions, which offer training in more than one language – including the minority languages as well – could play an important role. In a multicultural context students can study in at least two European languages, which may be attractive for foreign students. For this very reason and from the perspective of efforts aimed at internationalising higher education, the opinion emphasizes the significance of linguistic competences. Also, the authors of the draft opinion recommend for local and regional governments to have an initiative role, to be open towards partnership proposals.
The Committee of the Regions sees a great possibility residing in the spread of best practices and systemic solutions of European higher education system on the level of neighbouring states and also of accessing countries, since - among others - in this way students’ mobility in Europe can be ensured better, as well as Europe’s chance may be improved regarding the competition for talented specialists.
The county council president expressed his gratitude for Mr. Csák László’s (specialist) help in the elaboration of the draft opinion (who was also present at the Plenary Session organized on Thursday), for the support of the Committee of the Regions and EPP Group. He also accentuated the openness of the Party of European Socialists for reaching a compromise in the issue of minority languages and rural regions.
He finally concluded that the acceptance of the draft opinion has two significances. On the one hand it calls the attention on the importance of universities functioning in rural regions, – as it is for example the Sapientia University in Miercurea Ciuc – aiming that students of these institutions have similar possibilities as students of prestigious universities. On the other hand, raises the attention of the institution of the European Union on national minorities. The rapporteur added that the acceptance of the document bears a great significance because until now there were several proposals submitted regarding national minorities and minority languages, but this is the first one, which has been uniformly accepted by the concerned commission.
Mr. Csák László asserted that ‘above all the most important thing is that small, regional and minority universities are now obviously brought in the attention of the Committee of the Regions, and accordingly can become part of related policies of the European Union. So starting from now, it is up to the higher education institutions to use this possibility.’
Mr. Csaba Borboly is the permanent member of the Committee of the Regions since October of 2012. Moreover, he is member of the Commissions for Environment, Climate Change and Energy (ENVE) and for Education, Youth and Research (EDUC) of the Committee of the Regions, and he takes part in the related meetings as being the member of the Group of the European People’s Party (EPP Group) as well. He has been selected as rapporteur of the European higher education theme on the 19th meeting of the EDUC commission, organized on 16th of September 2013.
For those interested in the activity of the county council president in the Committee of the Regions, further information may be found at http://www.borbolycsaba.ro/en/committe-of-the-regions/. Mr. Csaba Borboly’s Hungarian speech held on the Plenary Session of the Committee of the Regions can be viewed on the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4826yQbcrtc&, while the related summary made on this occasion in Hungarian, on the following website of the Harghita Studio, (http://hargitatv.ro/2014/brusszeli-igen-borboly-csaba-felsooktatasugyi-velemenytervezetere/).
31st of January, Brussels
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