EuroSkills is a vocational skills competition which is staged as a European championship every two years. The focus of the three days competition is on the outstanding achievements of young talented professionals from 28 countries. Around 600 participants will be competing for the EuroSkills title in 45 different trades or skills in the categories Construction and Building Technology, Manufacturing and Engineering Technology, Information and Communication Technology, Creative Arts and Fashion, Social and Personal Services, as well as Transportation and Logistics.
In 2020, EuroSkills will take place in Austria for the first time in the competition’s history – the venue will be Graz. It is also the firm commitment of the EuroSkills 2020 company, to use the competition as a unique opportunity to change and shape the future in a sustainable way and to ensure that the participants, businesses and visitors keep the positive energy and the European Skills spirit in their hearts even beyond 2020.
The Austrian “Volks-Rock’n’Roll” singer Andreas Gabalier becomes the godfather of the European championship of the professions, which will take place from the 16th to the 20th of September 2020 at the Messe Congress Graz and in Stadthalle. His work will be embedded in the HEROskills2020 campaign (www.heroskills2020.at), which was presented on December 1st at a press conference in Graz. This is based on the EuroSkills 2020 Heroes, who are sent to all corners of the continent as official Austrian Ambassadors of the European Professional Championships.
With the first heroes, real gold-winning professional heroes could be won as ambassadors of the firstred-white-red edition of the EuroSkills. They all stood on the top floor of a Euro or WorldSkills competition and are among the most successful in their respective fields worldwide. The first EuroSkills 2020 Heroes are:
-) Birgit Haberschrick: European champion Floristry 2014
-) Lisa Janisch: European champion painter and coating technician 2016
-) Fabian Gwiggner: European champion graphic design 2016
-) Manfred Zink: European champion cabinet maker 2015
-) Melanie Seidl: European champion stonemason 2012
Josef Herk, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of EuroSkills 2020 GmbH, is pleased about the support of Andreas Gabalier: “The fact that such a well-known face works for the trades and our young talents is a sign of how important the message of the skills is. Namely that anyone who practise their profession with passion and show their best performance can become a real hero. And it is precisely these committed and ambitious young professionals who are the foundation of a successful, economic future,” he says.
Preparations for EuroSkills 2020 are in full swing, as the two managing directors Harald del Negro and Angelika Ledineg report. Careful planning and logistics are required to accommodate the approximately 45 professions on the exhibition area of Messe Congress Graz. It is necessary to provide more than 5,000 individual articles in different quantities on “D day” for over 500 participants in the respective professions.
