Education and Science, EU – Baltic States

Erasmus+, the EU new program for education, training, youth and sport, will be launched in January 2014. It replaces the existing Lifelong Learning Program (Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, Comenius, Grundtvig), Youth in Action, Erasmus Mundus, Tempus, Alfa, Edulink and the bilateral cooperation program with industrialised countries.

The new program is due to be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council (Member State Ministers) before the end of 2013.

The total budget for Erasmus+ is envisaged to be nearly €15 billion – 40% higher than the EU's existing mobility programs. In total, Erasmus+ will provide grants for more than four million people – most aged under 25 – to spend part of their studies or training in another country. More than half of the expected number of beneficiaries will be higher education or vocational students and apprentices in the EU.

More questions need answers

In 2014, the new Creative Europe program will start, which will continue to provide grants to support diversity and to enable companies and artists in the cultural and creative sectors to break into new markets. The MEDIA strand of the program will continue to aid film development, training and distribution. Creative Europe will also include a new loan guarantee fund aimed at making it easier for the cultural and creative sectors to access loans.

On the occasion of the world seminar on education - WISE Summit - in Qatar (October 2013), Commissioner A. Vassiliou responsible for education and youth underlined that only through education and culture different peoples begin to understand each other and develop closer relationships. Hence, Europe must remain open to the world.

The WISE Summit is an opportunity to debate some of the most urgent questions facing education around the world: how to ensure wide and fair access, how can schools prepare young people for the multiple demands of modern life, how to respond to technological change and can culture make a difference as a tool for 'soft' diplomacy? The answers to these questions are important for the European Union member states as well.

Openness to the world

The European Union’s Erasmus+ and Creative Europe programs are more open to countries outside Europe than ever before and the Commission looks forward to more exchanges involving students, university staff and artists, and stronger partnerships between educational and cultural institutions around the world.

Erasmus+, the new EU program for education, training, youth and sport, will provide increased opportunities for cooperation and mobility between the EU and outside world: in addition to around 2 million student exchanges within Europe, Erasmus+ will enable 135 000 students and staff to move between Europe and the rest of the world.

This international experience helps young people to increase their employability by developing new skills and learning how to live and work alongside people of a different culture and language. The best-practice skills gained by staff through such exchanges have a systemic impact because all of their students benefit from the experience they have gained.

European universities will also be able to receive EU support to set up joint Master's programs involving foreign higher education institutions and offer grants to students worldwide to participate in these programs.

More information

= European Commission: Education and training