Never stop learning: always look at the future

Twenty years after joining the European Training Foundation (ETF), Barcelona-native, Xavier Matheu de Cortada is heading home for good when he retires in February.

Xavier, who will be 63 by the time he hangs up his employee badge, never cut ties with hometown, spending weekends in Barcelona with his family and the week in Turin, working in key roles at the ETF. 

“My colleagues joked that I was like a pendulum, always swinging back and forth from Barcelona,” Xavier says.  

He came to the ETF in 2004 after having already established himself in a career in public service: he had worked for the Pere Mitjans Association (now a Foundation) in Barcelona, which engages with people with disabilities to help them into work. 

In his next job, at Spanish foundation CIREM that implemented technical assistance projects to developing countries, where he was the director of its international centre for 14 years, he “worked with a lot of EU and European funds” related to youth and youth employability, including the school-work transition, and school drop-outs (now known as NEETs – not in education, employment or training). Here he gained more experience of working on what is now known as the inclusiveness agenda. 

These experiences would give him vital experience that he would put to use throughout his career at the ETF. 

“When I joined the ETF in 2004, what I found – particularly in former socialist countries – was that a distinction was made between the social and economic aims of vocational education and training during the Soviet period,” Xavier recalls. 

“Vocational schools tended to be for people at risk of exclusion [from school] and were associated with residential premises. Very often people who could not live at home were sent to these schools – at least they could get a job in the end.” 

As the ETF’s country manager for Ukraine, in the first couple of years, he was involved in helping advise on shifting the vocational education and training system from social to economic aims. The education system in Ukraine was undergoing a decentralisation process, and he was also involved in early policy discussions on establishing a national qualifications framework. 

“While I was working in Ukraine, there was a moment [late 2004/early 2005] – the Orange Revolution – when we organised a seminar there. We decided to go ahead, despite the news that the political situation was very difficult. I was able to visit on the ground the demonstrations,” he recalls. 

The experience gave him confidence that Ukraine was serious about going ahead with reforms – it was evidently a country struggling between its Soviet past and the new conditions it faced. 

“We introduced the concept of qualifications frameworks, which was a very different kind to the type of organisation they had for qualifications in the Soviet system.” 

This experience was to come in useful many years later: when Russia launched its war on Ukraine in February 2022, the ETF was able to provide EU Member States with information to understand the content of Ukrainian qualifications held by refugees coming to Europe as they fled the war. 

Xavier moved on to work focused on the Western Balkan region, where a key priority in the education system was the inclusion of the Roma population.  

This kind of experience has continued to be relevant: in November 2023 at a Union for the Mediterranean and ETF conference on inclusion [Gender and Inclusiveness in Active Labour Market Policies] in Barcelona, delegates from youth organisations in North Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans were taken on study visits to centres dedicated to improving the employability of women and people with disabilities. 

“The definition of inclusion has shifted over the years,” Xavier notes. “Now it is not only about economic sustainable development, but also environmental sustainability, and social sustainability. You have to create this process to ensure social inclusion – leaving nobody behind.” 

Xavier has worked in various departments at the ETF – gaining valuable experience across the agency over the years. He had positions in the planning, monitoring and evaluation unit for seven years. 

Although this under the line work is not seen by the partners the ETF works with in policy support and development, it is a crucial area of the agency’s work in relation to the overall policy objectives set by the EU.  

It was an experience that was to prove vital in seeing off an existential challenge to the ETF when external consultants issued a report that was critical of the agency and recommended it merging, or reducing activities by half.  

“We had to present our arguments to contradict theirs and justify that the ETF was necessary, that the partner countries and stakeholders were satisfied with our services,” Xavier recalls. “This was a difficult moment. In the end the European Commission did not buy into the recommendations.” 

In 2014, Xavier returned to operations as head of a policy unit working on thematic areas – employment, VET provision, entrepreneurship and quality assurance for VET.  

That led to his current position as Head of the Knowledge Hub Department, since 2019, where experts have been tasked with drawing up a new strategy for the ETF in line with EU policy objectives through 2027. 

“We aim to become a global knowledge hub, a reference that enables anyone interested in human capital development to come to us and see different examples of how they work.” 

It was during this time, in early 2022, that ETF director Cesare Onestini – who had been in place since 2017 – stepped down to take a job at the European Council as Director-General for Agriculture, Fisheries, Social Affairs and Health. The ETF needed time to recruit a new director – and Xavier was appointed ad interim. 

When Pilvi Torsti, a former State Secretary of three ministries in her native Finland, was appointed in April 2023, Xavier organised the handover. 

Looking back over two decades with the ETF, Xavier singles out his time working with Ukraine as one of his brightest memories, but also the learning curve he climbed throughout his time with the agency. 

As for challenges to the ETF, Xavier highlights both Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine. 

“I am very proud of how we managed with Covid-19,” he says. “In the space of three weeks we had to review all our activities and try to see which could continue, with a different modality, and which had to be cancelled.” 

Some events were cancelled, and others moved online. Paradoxically, by the end of the year, the ETF was “reaching more people than usual, albeit with a less intense interaction”. The experience has changed how the ETF operates, with a lot of events that were once physical now online. 

Xavier is also proud of how the ETF responded to the war in Ukraine, providing support for ETF staffers from Ukraine, or married to Ukrainians, and initiating the Ukraine Knowledge Hub to help provide information for refugees and EU Member States on educational issues.  

As for his plans after retirement, Xavier says he does not plan to work as a consultant, but will look for opportunities to volunteer his skills where they could come in useful.  

“For me, working at the ETF has been a great opportunity for continuing learning,” he concludes. “Although I came here with 20 years of experience, I have learnt something new right to the very last moment. I am very proud of having worked at the ETF. It is a fantastic place.”