Book Review: Towards an EU Right to Education
| Published date | 01 September 2002 |
| Date | 01 September 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X0200900305 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
9 MJ 3 (2002) 307
Book Reviews
Gisella Gori, Towards an EU Right to Education, Kluwer Law
International, 2001, xxi + 448 pages, hardback
The original EEC Treaty of 1957 did not confer upon the EC institutions specific
powers for the development of a common educational policy. The Treaty did not
mention any educational rights for the employed and self-employed beneficiaries of the
free movement of persons and free movement of students was not provided for. The
word ‘education’ could not even be found in the Treaty. In the view of the drafters of
the Treaty, education was, and would remain, a policy area to be governed by the
Member States, not the Community. More than four decades later, this premise still
stands. Article 149(1) of the current EC Treaty stipulates that the Community shall fully
respect ‘the responsibility of the Member States for the content of teaching and the
organisation of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity’ and Article
149(4) adds that the EC institutions are not empowered to harmonize national rules
governing educational systems.
As most readers of this journal will know, however, the above in no way implies that
the Community has no role to play in the field of education. Education is still primarily
a national matter, but one only has to think of the Erasmus/Socrates programme or the
Bologna Declaration and the subsequent discussions on the introduction of a Bachelor-
Masters structure, in order to recognize the significance of European law and policy for
the field of education. All those interested in European educational law and policy are
well advised to take notice of the above mentioned book. In a clear and reader-friendly
style, Gisella Gori describes and analyzes the evolution of educational law and policy in
the light of the institutionalization of Community competencies.
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