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BUDGET

Is Erasmus really worth its budget boost?

Erasmus, the world's biggest student exchange, is to expand after 25 years of funding European students to go abroad. But with the EU budget being slashed, does the grant scheme deserve a 50 percent boost to its budget?

Published: 20 November 2013 16:17 CET
Is Erasmus really worth its budget boost?
Students celebrate "International Day" on November 6th at the Viadrina University in Frankfurt an der Oder. Photo: DPA

Since its launch in 1988, the EU's flagship student programme has paid grants to over three million Europeans in higher education to study or work elsewhere in the Union.

The 2011-2012 academic year saw 3,328 learning institutions across Europe sending their students abroad on Erasmus placements, among them 33,363 of Germany's best and brightest.

And the "Erasmus+" project approved by the European parliament on Tuesday will invest in the scheme further, merging the student exchange with six other education initiatives to form a "streamlined" programme to give financial support to 4 million people, at a cost of €14.7 billion over seven years.

Around €4.9 billion of that is dedicated to grants for higher education and it represents around a 50 percent increase on Erasmus' budget for the previous seven years.

The new unified system will extend beneficiaries to include "youth leaders, volunteers and young sportsmen", according to the Parliament.

But with austerity-hit member states wrestling the EU's next seven-year budget down by €15 billion to €960 billion – the first cut to a multi-year plan in the Union's history – some are questioning why more taxpayer cash is being spent on non-means-tested grants to university students, while other initiatives are seeing cuts.

Stuart Agnew, an MEP from the anti-EU UK Independence Party, told the European Parliament on Tuesday he saw Erasmus as an unnecessary and "glorified" alternative to national-run programmes, and attacked it as the EU "cynically using" young people to "further its own objectives" in fostering "European values."

Spanish education minister Jose Ignacio Wert also criticized the Erasmus+ plans on Monday, when he claimed Spain – which sent and received more Erasmus students than any other EU member state in the 2011/2012 academic year – would have to halve their grant payments under the new programme's funding system.

But EU education spokesman Dennis Abbot dismissed the Spanish minister's announcement as "rubbish" and "totally false."

The scheme seemed in jeopardy back in October 2012 when it posted a €90 million budget deficit just as EU institutions faced an overall shortfall of €8.9 billion for the year.

EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso leapt to the scheme's defence. "These payments are essential to revive growth and jobs in Europe," he said in a statement in October last year.

Prominent Germans also showed support for the scheme in an open letter to budget negotiators in Brussels in October 2012, Stern magazine reported in November that year.

The letter, signed by a hundred people including actor Daniel Brühl and author Cornelia Funke, urged budgeters to come through for year abroad students. "We hope the Erasmus budget for 2012 and 2013 will be enough to fulfil the commitments already made," it said.

Erasmus means "thousands of people are given the chance for life-changing experiences", the letter added.

And as debate continued, students planning their years abroad at universities across the 28 EU member states were left unsure if they would receive funding for their own "life-changing experiences."

But when a last-minute agreement by European Parliament and member states plugged part of the shortfall with a €6 billion budget "top-up" in December, Erasmus was among the projects saved, with the Commission proudly announcing it would fund 280,000 exchange students in the 2013-2014 academic year.

So why has a programme which went €90 million over budget last year and came close to leaving thousands of year abroad hopefuls high and dry not just escaped budget cutbacks but netted further support and funds in the new EU seven-year  budget plan?

Brikena Xhomaqi, director of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), a body representing Erasmus students, told The Local the scheme stood out among EU programmes as a particular success.

"It is the only EU initiative that's worked well across all the member countries," she said, because it allows people to "travel across borders, make new friends and develop their European identity."

Doing an Erasmus placement also makes young people more employable, according to ESN treasurer Jonathan Jelves. "Just the experience itself is a huge challenge," he told The Local.

It is an "empowering experience" and "forces people to grow and become independent," he added.

Students return from Erasmus "having matured a great deal," he said, and "are ahead of their peers." "They are more effective, productive workers," compared to the average graduate, he said.

Jelves also extolled the value of Erasmus to the European job market. "Erasmus students become very mobile, not afraid to move around," he said.

"They don't have this fear of going to work in a new country with a new language because they've already done it," he explained.

READ MORE: Former Chancellor says Britain a problem within the EU

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BREXIT

OPINION: Pre-Brexit Brits in Europe should be given EU long-term residency

The EU has drawn up plans to make it easier for non-EU citizens to gain longterm EU residency so they can move more easily around the bloc, but Italy-based citizens' rights campaigner Clarissa Killwick says Brits who moved to the EU before Brexit are already losing out.

Published: 8 December 2023 14:34 CET
OPINION: Pre-Brexit Brits in Europe should be given EU long-term residency

With all the talk about the EU long-term residency permit and the proposed improvements there is no mention that UK citizens who are Withdrawal Agreement “beneficiaries” are currently being left out in the cold.

The European Commission has stated that we can hold multiple statuses including the EU long-term permit (Under a little-known EU law, third-country nationals can in theory acquire EU-wide long-term resident status if they have lived ‘legally’ in an EU country for at least five years) but in reality it is just not happening.

This effectively leaves Brits locked into their host countries while other third country nationals can enjoy some mobility rights. As yet, in Italy, it is literally a question of the computer saying no if someone tries to apply.

The lack of access to the EU long-term permit to pre-Brexit Brits is an EU-wide issue and has been flagged up to the European Commission but progress is very slow.

READ ALSO: EU government settle on rules for how non-EU citizens could move around Europe

My guess is that few UK nationals who already have permanent residency status under the Withdrawal Agreement are even aware of the extra mobility rights they could have with the EU long-term residency permit – or do not even realise they are two different things.

Perhaps there won’t be very large numbers clamouring for it but it is nothing short of discrimination not to make it accessible to British people who’ve built their lives in the EU.

They may have lost their status as EU citizens but nothing has changed concerning the contributions they make, both economically and socially.

An example of how Withdrawal Agreement Brits in Italy are losing out

My son, who has lived almost his whole life here, wanted to study in the Netherlands to improve his employment prospects.

Dutch universities grant home fees rather than international fees to holders of an EU long-term permit. The difference in fees for a Master’s, for example, is an eye-watering €18,000. He went through the application process, collecting the requisite documents, making the payments and waited many months for an appointment at the “questura”, (local immigration office).

On the day, it took some persuading before they agreed he should be able to apply but then the whole thing was stymied because the national computer system would not accept a UK national. I am in no doubt, incidentally, that had he been successful he would have had to hand in his WA  “carta di soggiorno”.

This was back in February 2022 and nothing has budged since then. In the meantime, it is a question of pay up or give up for any students in the same boat as my son. There is, in fact, a very high take up of the EU long-term permit in Italy so my son’s non-EU contemporaries do not face this barrier.

Long-term permit: The EU’s plan to make freedom of movement easier for non- EU nationals 

Completing his studies was stalled by a year until finally his Italian citizenship came through after waiting over 5 years.  I also meet working adults in Italy with the EU long-term permit who use it for work purposes, such as in Belgium and Germany, and for family reunification.  

Withdrawal agreement card should double up as EU long-term residency permit

A statement that Withdrawal Agreement beneficiaries should be able to hold multiple statuses is not that easy to find. You have to scroll quite far down the page on the European Commission’s website to find a link to an explanatory document. It has been languishing there since March 2022 but so far not proved very useful.

It has been pointed out to the Commission that the document needs to be multilingual not just in English and “branded” as an official communication from the Commission so it can be used as a stand-alone. But having an official document you can wave at the immigration authorities is going to get you nowhere if Member State governments haven’t acknowledged that WA beneficiaries can hold multiple statuses and issue clear guidance and make sure systems are modified accordingly.

I can appreciate this is no mean feat in countries where they do not usually allow multiple statuses or, even if they do, issue more than one residency card. Of course, other statuses we should be able to hold are not confined to EU long-term residency, they should include the EU Blue Card, dual nationality, family member of an EU citizen…

Personally, I do think people should be up in arms about this. The UK and EU negotiated an agreement which not only removed our freedom of movement as EU citizens, it also failed to automatically give us equal mobility rights to other third country nationals. We are now neither one thing nor the other.

It would seem the only favour the Withdrawal Agreement did us was we didn’t have to go out and come back in again! Brits who follow us, fortunate enough to get a visa, may well pip us at the post being able to apply for EU long-term residency as clearly defined non-EU citizens.

I have been bringing this issue to the attention of the embassy in Rome, FCDO and the European Commission for three years now. I hope we will see some movement soon.

Finally, there should be no dragging of heels assuming we will all take citizenship of our host countries. Actually, we shouldn’t have to, my son was fortunate, even though it took a long time. Others may not meet the requirements or wish to give up their UK citizenship in countries which do not permit dual nationality.  

Bureaucratic challenges may seem almost insurmountable but why not simply allow our Withdrawal Agreement permanent card to double up as the EU long-term residency permit.

Clarissa Killwick,

Since 2016, Clarissa has been a citizens’ rights campaigner and advocate with the pan-European group, Brexpats – Hear Our Voice.
She is co-founder and co-admin of the FB group in Italy, Beyond Brexit – UK citizens in Italy.

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