The discourse of lifelong learning has undergone great changes, from its initial engagement when it was a matter of social and humanitarian issues as outlined in the early documents of UNESCO, to emphasising lifelong learning as a moral and individual obligation in a more competitive and market-oriented language. This policy trajectory has taken the discourse from an initial phase of great social visions to a second phase focusing on the need for self-regulated and morally responsible citizens. Recent research on the topic indicates that we are now standing at the threshold of a discursive shift where action instead of visions is at stake. Against this background the author asks if there is evidence enough to suggest that European policy on lifelong learning is now experiencing a discursive shift into what could be described as a new phase. The author uses critical discourse analysis as a methodological framework and the analysis of the empirical material points to a direction where it is relevant to speak about a new 'phase' of lifelong-learning discourse emerging in European policy, characterised by the urgent need for implementation. In this article a tentative conceptual framework is presented as to how this new, action-oriented 'phase' can be understood.
