Brussels, 06/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - With a budget of more than €14 billion over the next seven years, the new Erasmus+ programme will allow more than five million young people to study, train and take part in volunteering activities abroad, including in sport, the committee on culture and education of the European Parliament states. On 5 November, the MEPs of the parliamentary committee approved the informal agreement concluded with the Council of Ministers on the new multi-annual programme for education, training, youth and sport. “We have obtained many very useful results in the negotiations and I hope that this programme will be as successful as in the past”, said Doris Pack (EPP, Germany), rapporteur on this programme.
Erasmus+ brings together the current education, training and youth programmes (Comenius, Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus, Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig) and will include a sport plank for the first time ever. Another innovation is that, through Erasmus+, the European Union will guarantee loans of up to €12,000 a year or €18,000 over two years for students wanting to study postgraduate degrees in another country. This new mechanism is by no means designed to replace the grant or loan systems which already exist or could be established at national level, the MEPs stressed. The text provides for the level of bursaries to reflect the cost of living in the host countries and for member states to exempt students from any taxes or social levies. Unified management of the programme would also help to speed up the payment of grants to beneficiaries.
On the same day, the CULT committee also approved the EP-Council agreement on the Creative Europe programme, which will combine the current Culture and MEDIA programmes. It will have an extended budget of €1.4 billion to support cultural creativity and will act as a lever to add a European dimension to national cultural policies and accompany SMEs as well as large businesses in the cultural and creative sectors. The two programmes will enter into force if the plenary gives its green light at a final vote scheduled for November and if the text is approved by the Council. (IL/transl.fl)