As important decisions are more and more taken at an international level, the organisations signing this paper have decided to set up an international platform of student cooperation. The european week of mobilisation from the 16th to the 20th of november 1998 is meant as the first step to organise ourselves to propose an alternative to the current policy. 

The current process of european unification is limited to financial and monetary issues with economic crite-ria, which leave little space to go-vernments to develop a satisfying social and education policy. We think this process cannot be continued without a more active participation of the people. The enthusiasm of the governments hides the  tragedy of twenty million unemployed, among them a large number of young people, who are pushed to the margins of  a  society richer than ever. 

The answers of the governments to this problems are: flexibility, lower corporate contributions for social benefits and cuts to the welfare state. Moreover the real needs of the people are not taken into account, like social security and education. We think that education should be considered as one important instrument to fight unemployment. Under the pressure of the industries educational systems are being transformed: according to this logic education only has to fulfill the function of supplying the labour mar-ket producing "qualified  workers". So students are seen no longer as inde-pendent persons, but as "human re-sources". 

Consequences of cuts in social bud-gets are an increasing youth delinquency, social marginalisation and the rise of racism. In our opinion education is the necessary condition in de-veloping critical mindset, to be able to take part actively in a democratic society. Institutions of education, schools and universities, should be a public space of emancipation and of free development of individuals. An important function of these institutions should be to help finding soluti-ons for the social, economic and ecological problems of mankind. Educa-tion should be recognized as a priority for Europe. 

As students' unions we demand: 

• a free access to education without any social and material selection, also for foreigners
• a complete democratization of all institutions of higher education including the participation of all actions of society and an equal repre-sentation of students
• a sufficient financial support to students which gives the possibility to be independent of precarious jobs or their families
• an education policy which gives equivalence between diplomas and master degrees and allows student mobility as well as scientific exchanges, rather than competition between researchers
• an increase on investment on public education from both national go-vernments and the European Union
• the institutional recognition of students' organisations 
• that education should be updated and studentcentered, which means that teachers/lecturers should get the possibility to upgrade both subjectknowledge and pedagogical skills