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The positions taken by international institutions on lifelong learning have widely different educational goals, yet they are mobilizing the same means to attain them. This consistency in European practices represents a shining example of how local policies are determined by the international agenda: In the name of an assumed and uncriticized definition of the situation and the common good, technocratic authorities determine mandatory guidelines for how best to face outside constraints. These are never debated democratically, however; they are simply presented as natural rather than social issues. Politics has been replaced by management, which means that people have no say on goals (that would naturally be defined and desirable), but only on the best methods to manage them, with methods all the more unquestionable the more desirable the goal.