Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-10-20-Speech-1-145"
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"en.20081020.16.1-145"2
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Mr President, this evening we are debating the Erasmus Mundus 2009-2013 programme, on which we have finally come to an agreement with the Council. It will therefore be possible for this programme to enter into force in January 2009 and thus to benefit students starting from the beginning of the academic year in September. Here I would like to thank all my fellow Members who were draftsmen of opinions at the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Development and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, as well as my fellow Members on the Committee on Culture and Education. I would, of course, like to thank the European Commission. I would also like to thank the president of the Erasmus Mundus Association and the executive agencies that have been able to help us with their expert knowledge and, above all, their experience.
Five years after the adoption of Erasmus Mundus, almost to the day, I am happy to be presenting to you this second-generation programme whose objective remains the promotion of excellence in European higher education, enabling the most talented students from non-EU countries and from Europe to follow high-level joint programmes in at least three universities and to benefit from a high-quality welcome and significant scholarships.
The previous programme's figures speak for themselves: between 2004 and 2008, 103 Master's courses were selected and approved, over 6 000 students received Erasmus Mundus scholarships, over a thousand teachers from countries outside the EU came to European universities and over 400 higher education establishments from Europe and outside Europe were involved.
The new programme comprises three actions. The first opens up the programme to doctorates and will enable European students also to receive scholarships, although at a lower level. The second is exclusively devoted to partnerships with higher education institutions in non-EU countries, and the third covers the information campaign to be conducted on the international stage. The budget is EUR 950 million. By way of comparison, the first programme had a budget of only EUR 230 million.
There have been some extremely significant improvements made by Parliament to the programme, and I would like to point them out to you in order to pay tribute, in a certain sense, to you. The first improvement is that now, the criteria for selecting students are academic excellence criteria, and this also holds true within the context of the partnerships. Secondly, the geographical distribution criteria will be respected in order to achieve as balanced a representation as possible. Thirdly, the principles of equality between men and women and non-discrimination will be abided by. Fourthly, administrative obstacles and procedures, in particular in connection with visas, will need to be removed. The Member States will have to take the necessary steps to facilitate the issuing of visas to students from non-EU countries moving round a number of Member States. We attach particular importance to this point, even though it was a little difficult to resolve it in our negotiations with the Council.
Next, the learning of foreign languages in the host universities will be encouraged. Doctorates will involve establishments from at least three different European countries. This will make a great diversity of research subjects and theses possible, and will provide much more varied mobility opportunities. The scholarships will be better tailored and will take into account the tuition fees as well as the estimated amount of expenditure for students' studies. Work has been done in close collaboration with the Danish permanent representation and an expert from the Danish ministry of education on tuition fees, and this has enabled us to reach a compromise that is acceptable to all. Public-private partnerships with the universities will be encouraged, and special attention will be paid to the brain drain issue. Within the framework of action 2, funds will be targeted and used in accordance with the objectives of the development and external relations instruments. The information available in the universities will be clearer. Finally, the evaluation report that is to be completed two years from now will be more detailed, and will be broken down by actions and by geographical areas.
Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude: Erasmus Mundus is a fine programme and in these difficult times it gives a positive image of Europe. I therefore hope that Parliament will adopt it, fulfilling the wishes of many students, academics and researchers in Europe and throughout the world."@en1
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