Through the Lisbon strategy in 2000 and the “Education and Training 2010” work program in 2002, the EU initiated a process of policy coordination in education, which included as an objective for the education systems across Europe the goal of improving the quality of teacher education at all educational levels (European Commission, 2007). Following these developments, an accelerating process of Europeanisation of national education policies related to teachers and teacher education has been witnessed and teacher professionalism increasingly became a European issue (EDiTE, 2014). In her analysis of EU teacher-related policies and activities, Steiger (2014) describes a two-way interaction process of Europeanisation, implying that the European community influences the teacher policies of individual Member States, while at the same time Member States influence through complex mechanisms of interaction the policies of the community. The specific paper aims at presenting the development of Europeanisation in the field of teacher education, drawing from relevant academic literature and analysis of policy documents, as well as interviews with international policy experts from the European Commission, the OECD, and Education International. To illustrate how the specific process influences the domestic policy making of member states, the case of teacher education in Hungary is explored. Interviews with a selected sample of national policy experts, teacher educators and teachers from Hungary are analysed to help us better understand how Hungary has interpreted the relevant European initiatives related to teachers and teacher education. Preliminary findings indicate that although the principle of subsidiarity is still prevalent, various European resources (e.g. ideas, symbolic and peer pressures, development interventions, and financial resources) influenced the domestic policy-making process of member states in three main areas: (a) the continuum of teacher education (initial teacher education, continuous professional development, and induction); (b) the pedagogical knowledge and competences of teachers; and (c) the role of teacher educators. Hungary, a country that has actively pursued integration into the EU, including a constitutional amendment allowing accession (Batory, 2010), changed its initial teacher education programmes in 2006 introducing a consecutive 3+2 year model, which is followed by a two years period of induction and a regulated period of CPD which teachers need to undertake every seven years. Moreover, higher education institutions introduced a competency-based system for teacher education programmes (Szilagyi & Szecsi, 2012), whereas support measures for teacher educators are still under development.

Batory, A. (2010). Kin-state identity in the European context: citizenship, nationalism and constitutionalism in Hungary. Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 31-48. European Commission (2007). Improving the quality of teacher education. Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament. Retrieved from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52007DC0392 EDiTE (2014). Teacher education and teacher education policies in the European Union. Final conference and seminar 3rd-4th July 2014. Retrieved from http://www.fmik.elte.hu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/EDiTE_Budapest-conference_Issues-Paper_2014071.pdf Steiger, C. (2014). Review and analysis of the EU teacher-related policies and activities. European Journal of Education, Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 332-347. Szilagyi, J. & Szesci, T. (2011). Transforming teacher education in Hungary: Competencies for elementary teachers. Childhood Education, Vol. 85, No. 5, pp. 327-331.