European Union

German chancellor Angela Merkel has urged a "peaceful" solution to the Hong Kong protests on a visit to China designed to boost trade.

The EU has recognised that there are member states which do not comply with the procedures of the European arrest warrant, reported Spanish newspaper El Mundo. This follows the response of the European commissioner for justice, Věra Jourová, to a letter sent by the Spanish MEP Maite Pagazaurtundúa. Jourová says in her response that "it is a priority of the Commission to ensure that the European arrest warrant works well."

Facebook, in partnership with Microsoft and several academics, has launched a contest to help people to better detect "deep fakes" - realistic videos of real people doing or saying fictional things to mislead the viewer. The social media giant is investing $10m [€9m] in "The Deepfake Detection Challenge", which will include a dataset, a leaderboard, grants, and awards, to encourage industries to create "fact-checking" techniques to prevent AI manipulation.

The new Italian foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, said to a gathering of Italian diplomats that migration will be his priority and that Italy will "overcome" the Dublin agreement, according to La Repubblica. Under the Dublin agreement, European members states agreed that migrants and refugees should ask for asylum in the country where they are first registered. Italy is Europe's main entry point for migrants.

European countries that avoid repatriating ISIS fighters and put them on trial in their country of origin threaten the regional security in Syria, warned the US defence secretary Mark Esper. Thousands of ISIS fighters, many from Europe, are held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in north-east Syria. EU nationals are mostly from France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, and Sweden, according to a research.

Irish opinion leaders reacted angrily on the visit of US vice-president Mike Pence to Ireland earlier this week. In a statement Pence declared: "Let me be clear: the US supports the UK decision to leave the EU in Brexit". As the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is at the centre of the Brexit debate, one Irish Times columnist wrote that Pence had "shat on the carpet".

"There is [...] a worrying pattern of attacks on critical civilian infrastructure, including health facilities, schools and water facilities by the Syrian regime and its allies and such attacks have to stop," an EU spokesperson told Anadolu newsagency. For four months the Syrian regime, supported by Russia and Iran, has bombed the north-western region of Syria, killing at least 1,000 people, even though they earlier declared it a demilitarised zone.

President-elect of the European Council, Charles Michel, said in a speech to EU ambassadors that the "European Union should play a leading role on the global stage". He stressed that only by acting "boldly and confidently" Europe will avoid becoming a victim of the competition between the United States and China which is "defining today's international relations". The approximately 150 EU ambassadors were gathering for their annual meeting in Brussels.

Italy's new government, combining the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and centre-left Democratic Party (PD), was sworn into office on Thursday (5 September), promising to reset Rome's often fraught relations with Brussels.

Sucking CO2 from the air to mitigate global warming may sound silly at first, but it’s likely to be necessary nonetheless, says Nils Røkke. And the more we delay it, the higher will be the demand for carbon removal technologies in the future, he warns.

A horrific rape and murder of a kidnapped teen in Lithuania prompted the European Court of Justice on Thursday (5 September) to order mobile phone operators to hand over data enabling the localisation of calls made to the international emergency number 112.

Sensitive party politicking in the run-up to the appointment of the next European Commission has further escalated an already intense debate in Greece over a new law under which members of an independent competition authority have  been ousted.

The Capitals brings you the latest news from across Europe, through on-the-ground reporting by EURACTIV’s media network. You can subscribe to the newsletter here. /// BUCHAREST Romanian PM reacts to EURACTIV report. Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă has reacted to The...

Prime Minister Boris Johnson heads to Scotland on Friday (6 September) in campaign mode despite failing to call an early election after MPs this week thwarted his hardline Brexit strategy.

This week, Westminster debacle left us all slack-jawed, Italy’s new government is a little bit odd, and Vdl has her full Commission squad.

Oil and gas companies have spent $50bn (€45.3bn) on investment projects that undermine the Paris Agreement, with a new report from think tank Carbon Tracker warning that major companies risk wasting $2.2 (€1.9trn) on stranded assets by 2030. EURACTIV's media partner edie.net report.

A Ukrainian court on Thursday (5 September) released on bail a man suspected of involvement in the downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014 that killed 298 people.

Written by Denise Chircop,

Erasmus+ is the EU’s single integrated education programme for improving young people’s skills and employability, and currently covers the 2014-2020 period. It also promotes the modernisation of education and training in the EU Member States, by facilitating transnational contacts amongst different players and across different sectors. Erasmus+ brings together the previous EU programmes in education, training and youth, and also includes sports.

Objectives and focus

© Syda Productions / Fotolia

Overall, Erasmus+ is intended to contribute towards the EU’s strategic objectives for education and training, in line with the Europe 2020 priorities, with special focus on addressing skills deficits and skills mismatch. In April 2019, there were 3.2 million unemployed people under the age of 25 in the EU, a 36% decrease from the nearly 5 million in 2015. Still, four in 10 EU employers find it hard to recruit staff with the necessary skills. Therefore, Erasmus+ continues to focus on increasing attainment in higher education, lowering early school drop-out rates and improving attainment in key skills such as knowledge of a foreign language. It seeks to bridge formal (schools, universities), non-formal (evening classes, clubs) and informal (voluntary work) education, by supporting certification tools so that skills recognition is not limited to school certificates. This is useful, as young people who have studied or trained abroad claim to gain additional skills such as communication, adaptability, the ability to work with people from different backgrounds and problem-solving. Others who follow unconventional learning paths would also find certification useful.

Beneficiaries

Participating countries fall into two categories: programme countries and partner countries. In addition to EU Member States, the group of programme countries currently includes Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey. These countries were required to meet certain conditions and set up a national agency to manage the programme. Other countries from around the world can become partner countries by force of bilateral agreements granting them limited access to the programme.

In programme countries, members of accredited institutions, their students and staff, can participate in mobility exercises. Accredited institutions include institutions offering higher education, vocational education, training or adult education programmes, schools and youth organisations. Students can study and train abroad for periods adding up to a maximum of 12 months per degree level (undergraduate, master’s, doctorate). Grants vary depending on costs in the destination country (range: €300-350 per month). A student loan facility enables master’s students to borrow up to €18 000 for their degree abroad. However, uptake has been lower than expected due to delays in the launch of the facility and low participation among financial institutions. Students with special needs or from lower-income households receive additional support, which can be supplemented by funds from the national or regional budgets.

The European Commission estimates that from 2014 to 2020, the programme will have created mobility opportunities for over 4 million people, including 2 million higher education students, 650 000 vocational education and training students, 800 000 lecturers, teachers and other staff, 500 000 young people participating in volunteering or youth exchange schemes and over 25 000 joint master’s degree students. Between 2014 and 2018, over 2 million students and staff spent a period abroad under the programme.

A 2014 study commissioned by the European Parliament indicates that programmes such as Erasmus+ are very effective in engaging European citizens in European integration. However, it points out that relatively few EU citizens become their beneficiaries and that disadvantaged people are more difficult to reach.

Key actions

Erasmus+ is built on three key actions, which take up almost all of its budget. The first, Mobility of individuals (63 % of the budget), promotes learning opportunities for individuals within the EU and beyond, with a target of 20 % student mobility by 2020. The second (28 % of the budget) promotes cooperation for innovation and the exchange of best practices. By 2020, around 25 000 strategic partnerships will have linked 125 000 educational institutions, youth organisations and enterprises. Partners are expected to implement innovative practices and learn from each other. An additional 3 500 institutions, organisations and enterprises will have joined efforts to set up more than 300 sector skills alliances or knowledge alliances. Sector skills alliances address skills gaps by adapting vocational education and training to sector-specific labour-market needs. Knowledge alliances foster innovative and entrepreneurial capacity in higher education. Furthermore, this action helps higher education institutions to develop their international dimension, including that of partner countries. Support is also going to IT platforms developed as spaces for virtual collaboration. The third key action (4.2 % of the budget) supports policy development. It brings together young people and policy-makers in focused discussions, finances studies and information gathering, and encourages peer-learning by means of actions such as the exchange of best practices. It also supports tools, such as Youthpass, that help mobility by facilitating the recognition of qualifications.

Budget

Figure 1 – Erasmus+ 2014-2020 budget (€14.7 m); breakdown of the education and training budget by sector

Erasmus+ has a budget of €14.7 billion for the 2014-2020 period, which is a 40 % increase compared to the previous period but a decrease from the amount originally proposed by the Commission. An additional €1.68 billion is available for actions with third countries through the external action budget. The programme encompasses previous education programmes (notably Erasmus, Tempus, Comenius, Leonardo da Vinci, Grundtvig and Youth in Action), bringing an overall reduction in calls and actions and more efficient use of funds. The division of funds in the three key actions described above applies to the areas of ‘education and training ‘ and ‘youth’. Over two-thirds of the budget goes to education and training (see Figure 1). Within this category, higher education receives almost half of that amount.

Erasmus+ also contributes to sport, which receives 1.8 % of the global budget. Funds support collaborative partnerships that promote integrity in sport (such as anti-doping and the fight against match-fixing). Grants are also available for non-profit-making European sports events. Sport is additionally supported by studies and data collection to help policy-makers and stakeholders’ dialogue, particularly in the annual EU sports forum. Another 1.9 % of the budget finances activities under the Jean Monnet sub-programme. These activities aim to promote excellence in European integration studies in higher education worldwide, by supporting academic institutions, research and teaching activities. Another branch of the Jean Monnet sub-programme nurtures dialogue between academics and policy-makers to improve EU policy governance.

The Commission has programme guidelines and a work programme for 2019 on the basis of which it issues calls for proposals. In the meantime, the Parliament has adopted its position on the Commission’s proposal for the new 2021-2027 programming period. It favours the label ‘Erasmus+’ to signal continuity, a stronger emphasis on inclusion and an even bigger envelope than the one proposed by the Commission.

This is an update of an ‘at a glance’ note published in March 2015.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Erasmus+: More than just mobility‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Experts from several organisations say that reform of the Energy Charter Treaty, proposed by the EU Commission, will make it difficult to meet the targets agreed in the Paris Agreement - making it an obstacle to the clean-energy transition.

The EU's judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, launched a counter-terrorism register Thursday, which will give investigators and prosecutors an overview of criminal proceedings against suspects in EU countries. "Terrorists operate more and more in cross-border networks, the EU must do the same," Eurojust's chief, Ladislav Hamran, said. The database cooperation idea gained momentum after the 2015 Paris attacks, when suspects linked to the attacks were traced across other EU states.