On Wednesday, 22 July, Sabine Verheyen (Germany), the Chair of the European Parliament Committee on Culture and Education, echoed the words of David Sassoli, the President of the European Parliament, when she criticised the cuts to youth programmes that the EU-27 had decided the previous day.
“The Recovery Plan cannot act to the detriment of important spending priorities in the Multiannual Financial Framework”, said Verheyen, who criticised the amounts set aside for the Erasmus exchange programme and the Creative Europe programme in particular.
“If we want to focus on young people, we cannot cut money for research, young people and Erasmus”, said Sassoli. He confirmed that the European Parliament would fight against “unjustifiable” cuts.
Broken promises on Erasmus
The European Parliament has made Erasmus one of its priorities. The European Commission proposed doubling the funds available for this EU flagship programme, but the European Parliament called for the funds available for the current programming period to be trebled.
In 2014 and 2020, the funding available for Erasmus was €13.5 billion. Eventually, the EU-27 agreed to set aside €21.2 billion for this exchange programme. This is therefore less than the amount the Commission proposed in 2018 and confirmed again in May 2020, i.e. €26.3 billion.
“Every billion euros cut from the budget means hundreds of thousands fewer young people taking part”, said Verheyen. “Our position is that with a budget like this we will not be able to support any of the new initiatives in the programme, such as those relating to European universities or centres of excellence for vocational education and training. Unless there is significant compensation for schools from the Stimulus Plan (digital equipment, for example), I won’t be able to support the MFF agreement”, she said.
Creative Europe and the Solidarity Corps
There is disappointment too with regard to Creative Europe. In 2018, the Commission proposed increasing the amount allocated to this programme, which currently has a budget of €1.46 billion, by almost €400 million (to €1.85 billion). Ultimately, the increase has been limited to €200 million, bringing the total amount available to €1.642 billion between 2021 and 2027. “This is bad news for the creative sector”, says Verheyen.
Michaela Šojdrová (EPP, Czech Republic), rapporteur for the European Parliament, pointed out that the conclusions do not mention the European Solidarity Corps. “However, we can assume that the European Council’s position is to maintain the budget of €0.9 billion”, she said, before going on to explain that she has based her analysis on Charles Michel's previous proposal. “This is less than the Commission and Parliament expected. However, I can accept this budget on the condition that substantial changes are made to the programme to give priority to the main activity, namely volunteering”, she said. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)