E D l C λ Τ 1 Ο \ TRAINI Ν G IINING AND YOI Edith Cresson: Investing ¡n intelligence *"¿ Over the past year, the three European programmes for .TT education, training and youth in 199599 have finally been î^_ launched. The Leonardo programme was given clearance by EU Lifelong learning U ^J ministers in December 1994, with a budqet of ECU 620 million. .L3 Socrates and Youth for Europe III, requiring the joint approval of "7j the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament under the £^ codecision process introduced by the Maastricht treaty, took Austria. Finland. Sweden longer. They were formally agreed in March 1995, with budgets Education and training in the new Member States of ECU 850 million for Socrates, reviewable after two years, and ECU 126 million for Youth for Europe. Turin Meanwhile the Task Force for Human Resources became The European Training Foundation DirectorateGeneral XXII, under the responsibility of a new member of the European Commission, former French Prime Minister Edith Cresson. So the stage is set for transnational cooperation in The information society these areas across a European Union now including 15 countries. Towards electronic learning? The new programmes are accompanied by detailed operational documents that have been translated into what are now 11 official EU languages.