The future of the Erasmus+ Programme

The relevance of the Erasmus+ Programme gains special light in the current context of global democratic backsliding. However, there are still areas where improvements can be made to ensure that Erasmus+ appropriately reaches all young people and supports the youth sector in Europe. This position paper identifies the areas for improvement in the Erasmus+ Programme as well as the elements that are working adequately and should be continued.

Our key demands include:

• significantly increasing the Erasmus+ Programme budget;
• increasing the commitment of the programme budget for youth to at least 15%;
• the inclusion of a more prominent youth chapter of the Erasmus+ Programme in its upcoming iteration;
• improving the evaluation process for Erasmus+ grants;
• reforming and improving the governance and flow of information within the Erasmus+ Programme;
• improving the access of youth organisations within the Erasmus+ Programme;
• improving access to the Erasmus+ Programme for all young people in Europe;
• ensuring that the financial guidelines are equally implemented across all Erasmus+ Programme countries, particularly concerning recent diverging requirements from different National Agencies from lump-sum based grants;
• creating explicit definitions of the groups considered as participants with fewer opportunities, to facilitate access to information, targeting and monitoring;
• adding of inclusivity and sustainability considerations in project budgets - not just as a horizontal priority;
• increasing the top-up for green travel and proportionately align it to the distance covered, maintaining the recent increase for 2024 to the upcoming years;
• ensuring travel costs within grants account not only for distance, but also for accessibility of different travel means depending on the departing point, to ensure appropriate inclusion of youth from rural and remote areas.

* The original Position Paper was published in December 2023. The current revised version was approved by the board of the European Youth Forum in June 2024.