The Erasmus+ guarantee is making progress in Italy. The European Investment Fund (EIF) and Emil Banca Credito Cooperativo signed an agreement in this connection on Tuesday 18 September.
This new guarantee scheme allows EIF to provide capped guarantees to financial intermediaries, which in turn grant loans in “favourable conditions” to students who undertake a Master's degree. The objective was to provide €3 million in loans to 200 000 master's students by 2020. The European Court of Auditors highlighted limited results in its report published on 6 September last on Erasmus+ mobility. According to its observations, by the end of 2017, the system was functioning by way of a single intermediary in France and Turkey (outgoing students only) and in Spain (incoming and outgoing). During this period only 358 Masters degree students had received a loan of this kind (see EUROPE 12090).
The agreement concluded between the EIF and the Italian bank focuses on an amount of €2.7 million. This should enable 200 students from the Emilia Romagna region (northern Italy) to benefit from favourable lending conditions to carry out their Masters degrees in one of 32 countries covered by the Erasmus + programme. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)