Education issues have traditionally not played a central role within the European Union. This has gradually started to change in recent years. At the Lisbon European Council on 23-24 March 2000, the heads of states and governments of the European Union member countries set out a new strategic objective for the coming decade; "Becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion". This implies major changes and education will be among the areas affected. Two questions can be raised in relation to this development: 1) How can a European education policy be created within the existing framework of the European Union? 2) What could be the content of such an education policy? A new method of working called the �open method of co-ordination� has been developed. A critical concept in this context is �benchmarking�. Another new approach is to initiate what is referred to as processes. How are these methods working in practice and what implications will they have for the development of educational policies? The content of a European educational policy depends to a large extent on what kind of agreements could be produced within the context of the new working methods. One example of such initiatives is the European Report on Quality of Education. Linked to this is "the concrete future objectives of education systems" which was approved by the Stockholm European Council of March 2001. Using an examination of how the European Union is trying to find new methods for co-operation in the field of education and how elements of a European education policy can be found in present initiatives, it is possible to explore some scenarios setting out how the work of the European Union and a European education policy can develop.