Europass – what is it?

Clear and transparent: Europass allows anybody to describe all their acquired skills and qualifications so they can present themselves just as well in their own country of residency as in the whole of Europe.

In this way, the transparency between each Member State’s training and qualification systems will be strengthened.

Europass is a single reference framework which:

• allows the documentation of acquired skills and qualifications, regardless of where and when they were obtained;
• helps job searches by making communication easier between the person looking for a job and the person offering a job;
• facilitates the mobility of people in training and employees;
• brings transparency to the comparability and recognition of qualifications at European level.

Europass came into effect on 1 January 2005, and is based upon a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on 15 December 2004 (Decision No 2241/2004/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council). PDF 6 Mb.

In the context of the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the European Union, an inaugural conference in collaboration with the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Commission and the Council of Europe took place from 31 January to 1 February 2005 in Luxembourg.

Currently, Europass is being used in the 27 countries of the European Union, in the EFTA/EEA (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) as well as in Croatia and Turkey.