The Prime Minister of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel, and Minister-President of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, have signed a bilateral agreement in Luxembourg on cross-border cooperation in vocational education and training.
"This agreement is a further step towards European integration. We are getting closer to our goal of an open, cross-border labour market that really benefits people in the region", said Prime Minister Bettel and Minister-President Dreyer, underlining the main aims of the agreement.
"With this deal, another piece of the jigsaw has fallen into place, which will strengthen the way we work together as neighbours in the incredibly important field of vocational education and training. In signing it, both countries are helping to promote the dual training system and doing their bit to further integrate the cross-border labour market in this huge region", explained Prime Minister Bettel.
Minister-President Dreyer went on: "Our agreement aims to encourage vocational mobility between Rhineland-Palatinate and Luxembourg by making it easier for people from our state to take up training or participate in vocational continuing education in Luxembourg and vice versa. The deal not only confirms our commitment to existing partnerships, it also develops them even more and strengthens the excellent ties of cooperation that are already in place. In addition, the agreement will help us to meet the key challenge of how to satisfy the demand for skilled workers in future – a puzzle we will be able to solve much more effectively by collaborating across national borders. The incorporation of the pact between Rhineland-Palatinate and Luxembourg is an important part of this strategy. It gives us a foundation on which we can build to overcome the obstacles hampering mobility on the labour market and to cooperate in specific fields even more closely than we do already."
A new and especially important scheme is the plan to enable the Chambers of Agriculture to work together when it comes to cross-border training. The new agreement will take account of the fundamental need to share information and work together on training by introducing a structured approach for how the two Chambers will collaborate in future.
In terms of IHK (Chamber of Industry and Commerce) professions, such as industrial managers and forwarding specialists, there are already around 100 cross-border training relationships in place. The Chambers of Industry and Commerce based in Trier and Luxembourg are strengthening ties and will promote the cross-border opportunities they have to offer young people even more. In 2016, the Chambers entered a cooperation pact as regards craft trades, which now has a political framework thanks to this signed agreement and will undergo further development, for example in terms of teaching specialist classes in vocational schools. To counteract the skills shortages being felt in the caring professions, it was agreed there will be closer cooperation when planning training and safeguarding the supply of a skilled workforce.
With this agreement, the Regional Directorate of Rhineland-Palatinate-Saarland and ADEM, Luxembourg's public employment service, commit to continue sharing information and ideas, including on careers guidance, and to focus on new key areas, such as publishing information on the value of the dual training system. The labour ministries of Luxembourg and Rhineland-Palatinate will also work more closely on removing barriers to vocational mobility and encouraging collaboration between the administrative bodies involved in the European Social Fund (ESF), not least by promoting the QualiScheck continuing education grant at cross-border job and training fairs.
After signing the agreement, Minister-President Malu Dreyer and Prime Minister Xavier Bettel stressed that the partners wanted to continue working closely together in the interests of their region’s inhabitants. "Luxembourg and Rhineland-Palatinate benefit from one another. And we will continue to do so, not only in cross-border vocational education and training, but in many other areas too", said the Prime Minister and Minister-President emphatically.
The partners to the agreement are the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the Regional Directorate of Rhineland-Palatinate-Saarland of the Federal Employment Agency, the Luxembourgian public employment service ADEM, the Trier Chamber of Craft Trades, the IHK Trier, the Rhineland-Palatinate Chamber of Agriculture, the German Trade Union Confederation Rhineland-Palatinate/Saarland and the relevant Chambers in Luxembourg, the Chambre d'agriculture, Chambre de commerce, Chambre des métiers and Chambre des salariés.
The signing of the agreement between Rhineland-Palatinate and Luxembourg represents the incorporation of the multilateral framework agreement on cross-border vocational education and training in the region made on 5 November 2014, which defined the conclusion of bilateral agreements as a method of incorporation. The idea behind this is that it makes sense to consider the particular circumstances that apply in a relationship between two sub-regions and to look at their specific needs in detail.
In this spirit, Rhineland-Palatinate had already concluded a deal with the German-speaking Community of Belgium (East Belgium) back in 2016. Preparations are also underway for another agreement with the Grand Est region of France.