Towards qualifications recognition and skills portability: charting a path for Europe

The EU is transforming this challenge into opportunity by making mobility easier, careers more flexible and qualifications more transparent, moving closer to the Union of Skills. 

At the heart of this ambition lies the goal of unlocking the full potential of the single market by fostering seamless connections between Europe’s diverse talent pools. This includes modernising recognition practices to better reflect how people actually learn, i.e. through formal, informal and non-formal means. Skills acquired on the job, through vocational training or non-traditional learning pathways, should be validated and trusted across Member States.

Building the infrastructure for a skills Schengen  

Achieving this seamless skills mobility requires both digital infrastructure and policy alignment. To make this vision a reality, the EU is building on existing transparency tools and frameworks — such as EQF, Europass and ESCO — to create a common language for skills and qualifications. In parallel, the Skills Portability Initiative aims to enable both workers and employers to navigate recognition systems more efficiently, while a new framework for the automatic recognition of study periods and qualifications is being developed to facilitate mobility for learners and workers alike.

Central to this European transformation is Cedefop’s role in building the evidence base and facilitating dialogue needed to make skills recognition truly borderless.

Advancing European skills recognition

Cedefop is driving progress on skills recognition through its work on comparing and recognising vocational education and training (VET) qualifications and strategic convening. Drawing on ReferNet survey insights and expert interviews across Member States, Cedefop’s recent working paper identified key practices and challenges in VET qualification recognition, highlighting needs for consistent methodologies, enhanced EU-level guidance, and better alignment between occupational profiles and learning outcomes.

Building on this research foundation, Cedefop convened over 100 experts from EU institutions, national authorities, employers and trade unions at a recent virtual workshop to forge a more coherent European approach to recognition. The workshop identified three essential pillars for creating Europe’s skills Schengen:

• Common criteria development: defining shared standards for comparing qualifications based on learning outcomes, levels, and quality
• Digital innovation acceleration: enhancing citizen and employer access to EU transparency tools through AI and digital solutions that boost visibility and practical application
• Non-regulated profession pathways: establishing clearer recognition routes for VET qualifications in high-demand, non-regulated professions

These technical advances must be underpinned by stronger institutional and cross-country cooperation and clear EU guidelines to help systems converge while respecting national diversity.

As the EU moves forward with the Union of Skills and its vision of the free circulation of skills and qualifications, Cedefop will continue to provide the research foundation and convening platform essential for this transformation, ensuring that Europe’s diverse learning landscape is recognised and valued across all borders.