By EuAsiaNews,
Brussels : The European Parliament (EP) gave the green light Tuesday to a second funding period for the European Union’s “Erasmus Mundus ” Programme, which aims to promote the EU as a centre of academic excellence.
“Erasmus Mundus II ” has an estimated budget of 950 million euro for the 2009-2013 period . In Erasmus Mundus I programme (2004-8), 4424 scholarships were granted to students from outside the EU; 323 universities took part, 265 of them in Europe.
The funding of the first Erasmus Mundus Programme amounted to 230mn euro. There was a special window for India with 33 million euro for 870 scholarships for the period 2005-2007.
To facilitate exchanges within the programme, EP adopted amendments to the programme encouraging EU member states to consider simplifying their visa procedures.
It also stressed that students should be informed of their initial study destination as soon as the decision has been taken so they have the time to obtain visas.
“It is a good programme, and considering the difficult times we are going through, this is giving a positive image of Europe in the rest of the world,” said the EP’s rapporteur on the programme Marielle de Sarnez .
EU Commissioner for Education Jan Figel said ” Erasmus Mundus is a world-class, top-quality programme that promotes academic excellence, intercultural understanding, but also people-to-people contacts.”
The Erasmus Mundus programme seeks to attract the best-qualified students and academics from non-EU countries by offering high-quality masters or doctoral programmes created by consortia of universities from at least three different countries.
For the first time in the new funding stream from 2009, European students will also be able to apply for scholarships to participate in Erasmus Mundus Masters programmes, though the majority of scholarships will still go to students and academics from countries outside the EU.