The European Parliament’s main negotiator for the Erasmus+ program, MEP Milan Zver, spoke about increasing of budget for the program at a plenary session of the Parliament in Strasbourg last week.
Zver is negotiating for a three-fold increase in funding for this program in the next multiannual financial framework of the European Union. Thus, the Union will allocate a total of around 45 billion euros of budgetary funds to this program.
In his introduction, the Member sincerely thanked his colleagues, who support the three-fold increase of Erasmus+ budget funds. He also labelled this support as a “very sensible decision.”
Zver said that the decision of the Parliament to support the increase would not represent a “new vision for Europe”, but would be nevertheless important because it will allow for material conditions for further development and a more fair distribution of burdens, without privileges. “It will also imply a need for European Union’s own budgetary resources,” underlined MEP Zver.
The MEP, who is also a standing rapporteur of the European Parliament for the Erasmus+ program, stressed in his address that this program is “one of the most successful European programs” and also “a true added value of Europe.”
Zver believes that the potential of the program is much larger than “we are able to co-finance.” “We should not forget that it is not just participants of the Erasmus+ that benefit from the program, but also universities, local communities and the entire labour market, as “Erasmus participants” are more competitive in the labour market as well as in the economy,” said MEP Zver.
At the end of his intervention, the Member thanked the Commissioner, who also made a very positive assessment of the benefits of the Erasmus + program for the whole European Union.