Famous Europeans from Nobel laureates to Olympic champions have fought to save it and now funding has finally been found to ensure that Erasmus, the student exchange programme that is one of the European Union's most successful initiatives, lives on.
Named after a Dutch Renaissance philosopher, Erasmus has allowed more than 3 million students from around the European Union to spend a year studying in another EU country or beyond, giving young minds an immersion in other languages and cultures.
What began with a handful of adventurous students in 1987 has grown into arguably the most effective EU-financed educational programme, underpinning the union's original ideals of shared values and closer European integration. It sent 270,000 young Europeans to study abroad in the 2012-2013 academic year alone. But with the age of austerity and budget cuts biting across the continent, Erasmus was in line to have its funding cut, with its 2012 budget facing a 90 million euro shortfall.
After lobbying from Erasmus alumni and luminaries from across the EU - including 2010 Nobel economics laureate Christopher Pissarides of Cyprus, and Elisa Di Francisca, an Italian Olympic fencing champion - financing has been found from EU development funds to keep the programme going. In all, the European Commission announced this week that 2.5 billion euros from the 2014-2020 development aid budget will go towards education, with some 1.5 billion of that set aside for Erasmus for All, which will further expand the programme's geographic reach beyond Europe and its neighbouring states. Hans Ahl, a professor at Mid Sweden University who has been involved with the programme for more than a decade called the plan a "wise proposal".
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