Description: In March 2000, the Lisbon European council set forth a strategic goal for Europe to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy. In achieving this goal, it stressed the central role of investment in education and training as the main instrument to increase human capital effectiveness in terms of its impact on innovation, growth, productivity and employment during the following decade. Since then, the EU has been concentrating its efforts on encouraging investment in human capital formation and development. This tendency was confirmed by the commission's communication on "Making a European Area of Lifelong Learning a Reality" (COM, 2001) by stressing the importance of investment in education and training throughout life. Within this European area of lifelong learning (LLL), continuing vocational training (CVT) provided by the enterprises is considered as the main means to ensure the development and adaptation of skill and competence to the requirements for the emergence of a competitive knowledge economy. In this context and within the framework of "the second phase" in Leonardo Da Vinci project field study "CVTS2 - Revisited (2004-2007)", this paper is a quantitative and qualitative investigation into the functioning, development and effectiveness CVT suppliers' market for the enterprises in EU Member countries (with specific reference to the project partner countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Lithuania, http://www.trainingineurope.com/). Methodology (investigation steps and sources):This investigation into the functioning, development and effectiveness of the CVT supply market in Europe is conducted through two main consecutive interrelated steps (in two basic parts and a concluding section):The first step (part 1 of the paper) is an overall background overview concerning the basic structural characteristics and developments of CVT supply market to enterprises in Europe by types of training providers, subjects of training provision and branches of activity. It is based on the empirical data from CVTS-2 Survey of 1999-2000 in 25 EU countries, completed with related country specific studies and reports. The second step (part 2) draws upon the analysis of the results obtained through a qualitative and quantitative investigation conducted within the "training suppliers' market" of seven EU countries constituting the consortium of Leonardo project ("CVTS2-revisited: 2004-2007), namely: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Lithuania. This field investigation is based on seventy face-to-face in-depth interviews completed with 210 questionnaire-responses, concerning the CVT supply market functioning, development and effectiveness in terms of relational interactivity of different CVT providers with the enterprises, their quality management standards and innovative capacity in training provision. Conclusions and findings:The concluding section highlights the overall conclusions connected with the results obtained through the investigation and their implications for policy recommendation and further research development in the domain.In this connection, the very preliminary findings of this investigation underline the following overall tendencies:- The relational interactivity between the training suppliers and the enterprises is increasingly based on cooperative networking and learning partnerships;- Quality management training provision is becoming a normal feature for most of the training providers. This includes quality certification and the requirement of relatively high level of qualifications and professionalism for the trainers;- As for innovation in training provision, the training providers are increasingly diversifying their supply and moving towards flexible tailor made training offers.