One of the European Benchmarks for the improvement of education and training systems in Europe up to 2010 adopted by the Council on 5 May 2003 foresees that by 2010, the European Union average level of participation in lifelong learning, should be at least 12.5% of the adult working age population (25-64 age group) - this benchmark is reinforced by Employment Guideline n° 4 (see Part 2 on the European Employment Strategy).

According to settled case law (62), all financial means by which the public sector may actually support undertakings, irrespective of whether or not those means are permanent assets of the public sector, fall under Article 107(1) of the Treaty, provided that they constantly remain under public control, and remain therefore available to the competent national State.

The GOC added that it was entitled at a minimum to some "narrowing down" of the possible scope of the verification (e.g. by means of an advance written list of all questions that the Commission officials would ask) (95) which in the GOC view could not have been exhaustive given short duration of the visit.

13. Points out that service concessions within the meaning of Article 1(3)(b) of Directive 2004/17/EC and Article 4 of Directive 2004/18/EC are contracts in connection with which ‘the consideration for the provision of services consists either solely in the right to exploit the work or in this right together with payment’; emphasises that service concessions were excluded from the scope of the public procurement directives in order to offer contracting authorities and contractors a greater degree of flexibility; points out that in several judgments the CJEU has confirmed that service concessions are not covered by those directives, but rather by the general principles laid down in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (ban o ...[+++]n discrimination, principle of equal treatment and transparency), and that it must remain open to public contracting authorities to ensure the provision of services by way of a concession if they consider that to be the best method of providing the public service in question, even if the risk associated with such an operation is limited, but this limited risk is transferred in full to the concession-holder (judgment in Case C-206/08 of 10 September 2009, points 72-75);