This document reports on a European Training Foundation Advisory Forum study of vocational education and training (VET) and retraining in the regions of the European Union (EU) that synthesized overviews of the general country situations regarding the territorial organization of the VET system and policy and relevant case studies concerning decentralization of training and retraining. Topics covered in the report's four sections are as follows: (1) conclusions and recommendations for the European Training Foundation and European Commission (EC); (2) method; (3) VET as a factor in regional development; and (4) regionalization as a precondition of VET effectiveness (situation and trends in EU countries; current evolution of EU policy; situations and trends in partner countries; specific issues for acceding countries; and power sharing between states and regions). Appendixes constituting approximately 40% of the document contain the following: members of subgroup B; EC recommendations on regional training councils; typology of power sharing in education and VET; conditions of effective VET regionalization; advantages and difficulties of bringing decision making closer to problems and actors; synthetic assessment of the partner countries from National Observatories reports; and "Training and Development of Vulnerable Areas: Regional and Local Approach; Advisory Forum--Sub-group B" (Jean Luc Ferrand). The bibliography contains 41 references. (MN)