Brussels, 06/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has selected 31 students (one per participating country), to symbolically represent the 2 millionth Erasmus student. Since its launch in 1987, the Erasmus programme has seen 2 million students take part by mid-2009. The students chosen by the Commission took part in a conference held in Lund, Sweden on 5-6 October at which there was discussion of how to take forward the Erasmus student exchange programme. Discussion focused on improving the Erasmus programme and on how to make going abroad for learning purposes the rule rather than the exception for all young people in Europe. This is the underlying question of the Green Paper on learning mobility for young people, published by the European Commission in July 2009. A public consultation (including an online questionnaire) on this matter is open until 15 December 2009. “The Commission strongly supports the view that going abroad to learn should become the rule rather than the exception for young Europeans. The conference in Lund is helping to make this objective a reality,” said new European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth Maroš Šefèoviè. The stories of the 31 selected students are highlighted in a publication accompanying the conference. These stories illustrate the programme's positive influence the programme has had on the students' lives and how it has changed their view of the world and Europe. (I.L./transl.rt)