On 28 March, the EP adopted its EP position on the Erasmus+ 2021-2027 regulation, which basically supports the European Commission (EC)’s focus on continuity and agrees with the Council in keeping the + in the programme’s name. However, compared to the EC proposal presented in May 2018, the EP gives greater prominence to inclusion measures (asks e.g. for an EU level inclusion framework and national inclusion strategies), underlines the need for better synergies with other EU funding programmes and asks for a tripling of the budget (instead of a doubling). On the European Universities initiative, the EP calls for a clearly limited financial support of 20% from the centralised Erasmus+ budget and underlines the need for comprehensive geographical coverage of European universities. The EP position includes a political statement saying that the EP wants to re-examine its support for any of the promoted actions in case the financial envelope is lower than what they suggest. The EP also underlines that its support for new initiatives such as the European Universities, Centres of Vocational Excellence and DiscoverEU is contingent on the evaluation of the pilot phases and on further definition of the actions. Since the Council adopted its position already on 26 November 2018, the adoption of the EP position paves the way for the finalisation of the text among EC, EP and Council (the so-called trilogue negotiations) under the next parliamentary term.
On 12 March, the EP also adopted its position on the European Solidarity Corps (ESC) 2021-2027 regulation. With its position, the EP agrees with the other institutions that volunteering outside country of residence should be at the core of the new programme, but that humanitarian aid outside the EU should be a second strand. Humanitarian volunteering is not supported under the current (ESC) 2018-2020. In-country and part-time activities should be allowed particularly for people with fewer opportunities. The EP also suggests a clear division of the budget for each strand and agrees on 86% for volunteering, 8% for traineeships and jobs and 6% for humanitarian aid activities. The adoption of the EP position paves the way for trilogue negotiations under the next parliamentary term, since the Council had adopted its position already on 26 November 2018.
Regarding the current Erasmus+ programme, the EP and Council adopted in March a regulation in the context of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit. The regulation should ensure that ongoing learning mobility activities under the Erasmus+ programme will continue to be eligible for grants (see SwissCore article on EC proposal).