The Conference theme presents the idea that “transition, educational change and development are three interacting concepts, underlining that transition within education is never an easy process”.

These words are universal, but, also describe the recent history of Hungary. In 1988, I received an invitation to attend an International Conference in Pécs (Hungary) under the title “Philosophy of Education: Bridge or Gulf between East and West”. The Wall was still there, with a will of continuity, in spite of the recent airs of the Perestroika. We were more or less three dozens of professors, mainly from the East and a handful of the West, as the keynote speaker of this Conference of 2015,Michael Apple. The atmosphere was nice and the criticisms to the Hungarian political and educational system were scarce, coming only from some professors from the West wing.

I remember a Préface written by the known poet Paul Éluard at 1949 for the book La Hongrie d’Aujoud’hui, in which the first paragraph said: “je viens vous parler d’un pays et d’un peuple qui sont comme le rire même et la flamme de la vie (…). Un pays qui est l’incarnation de l’optimisme, de la gaîté. Un peuple qui lève la tête  et qui sait en fin ce que veut dire clarté, espoir, bonheur”. But a few years later, in 1956, this people suffered a massacre when they expressed their will of changing the dictatorship they had. In those years the schools had been nationalized, it was established a monolithic school system based on a central imposed curricula and methodology, and to a strict central control of teachers regarding their adherence to the official ideology, as the teaching process turned into a docile tool of communist indoctrination. Things changed after the fall of the Wall. Specifically, the 1993 Act on Public Education, enforces all freedoms, including the right of founding a school, as well as free choice of schools by the parents. Also it prohibits all form of discrimination, as previously there was a numerus clausus on the enrolment of children of non-working class or non-peasant origin. Surely this transition was not an easy process: one of the organizers of the Conference of 1988 left  Hungary and went to New Zealand.

Meanwhile, what was happening in those years in the West? Are we speaking of a lineal and perfect quarter of century, being in the best of the possible educational world without any relevant  changes or problems? We know this is not the history. It would be very long to analyze all the different educational problems we have had. Therefore I consider it would be convenient to reflect about the article on education of the Treaty of Lisbon.

My paper does an historical and theoretical analysis of the main four tenets that would be discovered in the study of Article 16: 1) Freedom of education is not the expression of a neoliberal policy that implies removing the State function in the field of education. 2) Schools created by the initiative of citizens should be economically supported also by the State. 3) The distinctive character of a private school freely chosen by  parents cannot be translated in attitudes of indoctrination. 4) All these ideas are also a transition in the West for some ideological groups (France, Italy and Spain are studied) but the future main transition is how to apply this distinctive character to public schools.

Lastly, and in the same horizon, the educational system, after Charlie Hebdo, must reconsider the meaning of the French secularity and the limits of freedom of expression.

- Éluard, Paul. (1949) Préface, in La Hongrie d´Aujourd´hui, Szikra, Budapest, pp. 3 – 4 - Ministry of Education and Culture. Education in Hungary.(2008) Past, Present, Future. An overview, Budapest, pp. 10 – 14. - Horváth, A., and Mihály, O., editors, (1988) Philosophy of Education: Bridge of Gulf between East and West? Országos Pedagógiai Intézet, Budapest, Hungary(259 pp). Also, the issue (in Hungarian) of the journal Educational Theory and School Research, 1988, 7:3. - Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy le 20 décembre 2007. Le Monde, 21.12.2007. - Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms as amended by Protocols No. 11 and No. 14 -- Protocol to the Convention of Human Rights, 1952 and - Treaty of Lisbon, December, 2007 - Merleau – Ponty, M. (1955). Les Aventures de la dialectique, Paris, Gallimard, p. 305 - Collas, A. L´école mobilisée pour former des citizens, Le Monde, 22.1.2015. - Ibáñez – Martín, J. A. (2012). Faith Schools, Society, State and Religion in the Horizon of the Treaty of Lisbon, in Herrero, M. Religion and the Political. Hildesheim. New York. Georg Olms Verlag, pp 107 – 129. - Haydon, G. (2009). Faith in Education, A Tribute to Terence McLaughlin. Institute of Education, University of London. - Berlinguer, L.(2014) Libertà di educazione, - Chesterton, G. B. (1950) The Common Man, London, Sheed and Ward. -Plato The Republic