This paper discusses certain developments in education policy in the European Union since the implementation of the Lisbon strategy. Greater focus on lifelong learning as a means of increasing the competitiveness of the European Union, and establishment of several new, efficient policy tools (above all the "open method of coordination") have, in a relatively short space of time, opened up national policies in education and training, resulting in "Europeanisation" of these policies and even the beginning of a process of formation of common European core skills in education and training: a model of "key competences" that the European citizen should possess to be able to meet the challenges of the increasingly complex environment that surrounds us. (Contains 3 footnotes.)