In this article I begin by addressing three ways of thinking that are deeply influencing educational policies, not only at the European Union level, but also inside each Member State. Then, I move into a more detailed explanation of these influences, raising three main arguments: (i) employability as a problem for each citizen; (ii) comparability as a new mode of governance; (iii) mobility as a means to imagine European citizenship. The whole text is built around the new programme, Education & Training 2010, which constitutes a kind of "umbrella" for the political intervention of the European Union in the field of education.