Being or becoming a European adult implies a lot. However a lot which every adult should be capable of. This generality makes it an undertaking for basic education.Basic education in our societies surely includes cultural, political, economic and technological dimensions in addition to basic literacy and numeracy skills. It thus refers to a set of specific disciplinary competences and knowledge, but also simultaneously to general abilities of coping successfully with one’s life. This includes the ability to recognize one’s newly emerging needs for learning and the ability to learn autonomously in accordance with that. It also means a minimum of education everybody should have. The first main objective is the analysis of the inherent problems of a comprehensive and flexible concept of basic education with a European perspective. Comprehensive means that it includes cultural, political, economic technological dimensions not only in addition to but also as fields of application for basic literacy or numeracy but particularly for learning competences. Problems originate from the fact that the requirements for ‚Be(com)ing a European’ in our complex societies are so high and so dynamic that it can hardly be classified as ‘basic’ education. This includes not only the cognitive and reflective dimension (which things I need to know/learn) but also the motivational (I want to learn more in accordance with the dynamic of society), and the volitional (I do it).The second main objective is the elaboration of a comprehensive concept of basic education. Such a concept cannot be outlined on the content level (this will only be done in an exemplary way for project partners) but on a general competence level, so that it can be applied to different educational contexts. The third objective will thus be the implementation of the concept into the educational work of the project partners.