In December 2003, after a consultation of national authorities and social partners, the European Commission introduced a proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council for a single framework for the transparency of qualifications and competences which rationalises several existing tools for the transparency of diplomas, certificates and competences.
This new EUROPASS came after a previous initiative called "Europass training" corresponding to a decision of the Council in December 1998 promoting European pathways for ¨work linked training, including apprenticeship¨, work placements abroad.
It is partly based on the work done by the European Forum on transparency of vocational qualifications bringing together social partners with representatives of national training authorities, which resulted in particular in the development of two documents (the European CV and the Certificate Supplement).
The new EUROPASS has a wider scope and includes three other documents corresponding to another European initiative developed around the same time:
And finally in 2002, the European Forum on the transparency of vocational qualifications was replaced by a technical working group, whose mandate, following what was stated by the Copenhagen Declaration was to develop "increasing transparency in vocational education and training through the implementation and rationalisation of information tools and networks, including the integration of existing instruments such as the European CV, Certificate and Diploma Supplements, the Common European Framework of reference for languages and the Europass into one single framework."
Read more about EUROPASS from CEDEFOP >