Oskar Negt (2010) has identified a set of six key competences for European citizenship education. Identity and intercultural competence, history, justice, ecology, economic and technological competence he considers to be crucial for learning in, about and for a European society. His European curriculum is in sharp contrast to the agenda of a European lifelong learning policy, aiming at the mobilization of learners and workers and the flexibilisation of qualifications. While educational programs and practices are crucial to construct the European project, patterns and structures for learning are transformed in a way that basically questions established assumptions of education (Bildung). The idea of a defined body of codified knowledge to be imparted to learners by effective ways of teaching is in question if the know-what about Europe disappears behind the know-how of mobilizing human capital in a knowledge society. Drawing on the results of a series of comparative European research projects, the experience of European expert networks and lately the challenges of conceptualizing a MA program titled ‘Education in Europe’ I want to explore the gap between the idea of Europe and the educational strategies applied in the process of building the European project as well as the potentials for reconciliation.