The depoliticisation of education: how the EU uses diagnostic analysis and economic framing to advance educational reform

EU institutions increasingly frame education as a policy as a tool for economic growth under a ‘social investment’ approach. However, what this means in practice remains under-explored. We address this gap by examining over 1000 country-specific recommendations (CSRs) issued in the context of the European Semester in the period 2010–2021. Against our expectations, we found that over this period CSRs focussed more on early childhood, primary, and secondary education -areas that are less closely related to the European Semester economic framing- than on higher or adult education, and often had a social character. This signals ‘competence creep,’ where the CSRs have been used to target particularly education areas where EU’s formal competences are weaker. We explain this with reference to the socio-political, rather than economic-functional, nature of CSRs and the EU’s use of economic reframing and depoliticisation as key policy resources to normalise its ‘voice’ and expand its influence.