Changes from plenary report to adopted text

30. Regrets that it remains time-consuming to apply for Erasmus+ funding and that applicants often cannot apply without external support, discouraging the participation of small organisations and benefiting project-writing consultancies;

31. Is concerned by the fact that almost a third of students in higher education mobility reported that they did not receive full credit recognition and calls for action to align with the objectives laid down in the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education; underscores that this hinders the creation of a genuine European Education Area and forms a significant barrier to students who depend on completing their degree in a timely manner;

32. Regrets the lack of encouragement of partnerships between schools and non-profit organisations which have the knowledge to help teachers access quality learning mobility;

33. Considers that the recognition of VET as a path of equal value to academic studies is overdue; moreover, is worried by the remaining obstacles to seamless VET mobility, such as policies fragmented between national and EU level;

34. Regrets the insufficient funding for Centres of Vocational Excellence in view of the demand for them;

35. Is disappointed by the low uptake of adult learning and education activities, given its importance;

36. Welcomes the lump sum approach being applied in cooperation projects, as many beneficiaries acknowledge it as an effective simplification measure; notes, however, that the requirement of ‘continuous reporting’ can be a burden, especially for smaller organisations;

37. Regrets the fact that in 2022, the number of beneficiaries of centralised youth operating grants was reduced drastically, severely impacting an already COVID-weakened, volunteer-led youth civil society sector;

38. Regrets also the significantly fewer successful applications from youth and volunteer-led organisations for centralised grants, particularly in the European Youth Together and Key Action 2, Cooperation Partnerships in the field of Youth, and the subsequent reduction in the latter’s budget in 2023;

39. Notes that the Erasmus+ sport sector has very limited funds in some areas, particularly for the organisation of events, thus limiting its scope;

40. Deeply regrets the slow and incomplete development of the IT infrastructure and the improper functioning of IT tools such as the Beneficiary and Project Management modules and the Online Language Support (OLS), which increases the workload of all those involved in the programme’s implementation, discourages the participation of newcomers and undermines the programme’s ambition to widen participation; notes that this inhibits optimal implementation, risks flawed and incomplete programme documentation and monitoring, and jeopardises evidence-based development in the future and notes further that similar issues exist with IT tools in other EU-funded programmes, including the European Solidarity Corps;

41. Deplores the fact that IT issues also severely affect data availability, which is essential for the ongoing mid-term review, thus necessitating a much more onerous evaluation methodology and exacerbating the administrative burden;

42. Points out the need to take the impact of AI seriously, since it has already facilitated fraudulent actors, but could also ease the workload of NAs and improve data collection;

43. Underlines the existing inconsistencies with regard to reporting expectations, evaluation results and general information-sharing across the different NAs, which creates different implementation standards for beneficiaries and affects equity in the programme’s functioning;

44. Is concerned about the shortage of professionals and volunteers to implement the programme and requires clarification as to whether this has an impact on the absorption of funds;

Improving the current and designing the future Erasmus+ programme

45. Calls on the Commission, the Member States, national authorities and NAs to keep Erasmus+ close to the people and ensure it remains a bottom-up ‘citizens’ programme’ offering quality education and mobility opportunities for young people and learners of all ages;

46. Emphasises that the overarching purpose of Erasmus+ is broad and goes beyond labour market needs;

47. Asks that the programme be simplified at all levels, including by assessing whether existing (sub-)actions can be merged, and that this EU flagship programme not be overloaded with new tasks and initiatives that dilute its core objective;

48. Calls on the Commission to remove all barriers, including financial, linguistic and administrative barriers, such as those created by the new ICT tools, in order to achieve a truly inclusive programme embracing diversity, while not reducing the number of grants available to beneficiaries;

49. Insists that digital tools should be optimised by 2025 at the latest to create a user-friendly, accessible, reliable, speedy and efficient environment that respects data protection;

50. Emphasises that issues with the IT infrastructure similar to those experienced in the current programme period are unacceptable; calls on the Commission to stabilise the existing IT-tools and not change them with each new programming period, and expects the IT infrastructure of the next Erasmus+ generation to be fully operational from day one, particularly with regard to the Beneficiary Module;

51. Calls for thorough trials and consultations with NAs and end users before rolling out additional features or new IT tools, and for compliance with the EU Web Accessibility Directive to be ensured;

52. Calls on the Commission to correct the limited transparency and usability of the results section ‘Projects funded under this topic’ in the portal for funding and tender opportunities, so that data can be downloaded by stakeholders to analyse the characteristics of successful and rejected projects in terms of organisation, budget amounts, lead country of project or project type;

54. Requests that the Commission consider charging for digital tools and online activities to support learning separately, particularly when they are used to prepare for an activity, in order to avoid excessively high advance payments;

55. Insists that the simplification of application procedures and requirements and the improvement of the guidelines, particularly for individuals, must remain a high priority, as they are barriers to the programme; points out that inadequacies often affect young, first-time participants the most;

56. Requests proportionate registration, application and reporting processes in terms of the length of documents and a reduction in administrative and bureaucratic requirements, particularly for smaller grants;

57. Points out that proposal forms need to be accompanied by clear rules and guidance in understandable language; calls on the NAs to further improve feedback to applicants;

58. Calls on the Commission to provide continuous training to EACEA project officers and NAs’ staff and clear communication about the interpretation of Erasmus+ initiatives;

59. Recalls that the early, transparent and reliable communication of deadlines and steps is the basis for fair and equal access to the programme;

60. Calls on the NAs to organise information sessions on reporting requirements at the beginning of the projects; suggests a comprehensive revision of reporting and accounting so that the same information is not requested repeatedly;

61. Calls on the NAs to empower their inclusion officers to implement the plans for inclusion and diversity;

62. Calls on the Commission to strengthen its work with stakeholders on European ‘inclusion targets’ for the programme and to make available data on projects which include participants with fewer opportunities;

63. Calls for a better balance between quantitative (the number of beneficiaries and supported projects) and qualitative objectives within the programme, and emphasises that improving the quality of education must continue to be a focus of Erasmus+;

64. Urges the Commission to step up efforts on the programme’s digital transformation, in particular on achieving an ‘Erasmus Without Paper’ for all education and training sectors; calls on the Commission to establish the ‘European Student Card’ following the initial planning, and to help higher education institutions adopt digital learning mobility nominations and transcripts of records by 2025;

65. Asks for an increase in the upfront payments for beneficiaries with fewer opportunities and to provide beneficiaries with timely payments;

66. Asks for a more frequent and regular review and adjustments to the inflation rate index of grants and unit costs in order to align them with the cost of living, inflation and the needs of beneficiaries;

67. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to help address the problems of accommodation for Erasmus+ mobility students;

68. Calls on the Commission to evaluate the alliances’ readiness for autonomy together with them before the end of their funding period, in order to determine whether they need some form of targeted support to achieve autonomy within a reasonable time frame, as well as for the stabilisation and deepening of alliances through project-related future funding;

69. Calls on the Commission to discuss with the co-legislators, as early as possible, the sustainable continuation of the European Universities Alliances as a flagship initiative; stresses that such a future-oriented vision must make these alliances the spearhead of European higher education; recalls that the European University Alliances should serve as models and that the Commission and the Member States should create framework conditions which are fully interlinked to the European Higher Education Area and the European Education Area as well as a legal status for European Universities Alliances;

70. Calls on the Commission to use the programme’s tools to encourage accommodations that would open up sectors where women are underrepresented such as IT, science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics, entrepreneurship and VET, and subsequently to facilitate women’s integration into these segments of the labour market; suggests that the Commission foster gender balance in the programme;

71. Stresses that by improving co-creation, Erasmus+ can support education to respond to new societal needs with methodologies that foster the development of an adapted set of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values, and draws attention particularly to the programme’s contribution to the transition towards digital education;

72. Calls for the wider use of and clearer rules for virtual and blended learning and the building of infrastructure for digitalised and remote learning opportunities, extending them to other educational sectors in order to facilitate smoother and more flexible transitions and to facilitate inclusion;

73. Suggests the development of synergies between Erasmus+ and other multiannual financial framework (MFF) programmes to fund improvements in access to educational tools for areas and communities where connectivity or access to technologies are low, similarly to what is being tested in a preparatory action;

74. Asks for eTwinning and the European School gateway to be integrated fully and seamlessly into Erasmus+ and to be better promoted among teachers and school staff;

75. Asks the Commission and the Member States to promote the European dimension in teachers’ professional development and to encourage mobility among them; asks for provisions to be made to substitute teachers or to compensate them for time spent on Erasmus+ projects;

76. Suggests that the ‘Jean Monnet for Schools’ action become decentralised so that it is managed by the NAs in order to simplify access for schools;

77. Underlines the need to allocate more funding to opportunities aimed at primary schools and pupils, given the very high level of demand in most programme countries;

78. Calls on the Commission to resolve the issues caused by the quantitative limitation implicit in institutional accreditation, given the programme’s ambition to be inclusive, particularly with regard to schools, given their sheer number across the EU;

79. Calls on the Commission to examine how synergies between Erasmus+, other MFF programmes and the EU Strategy on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life (2021-2030) can be established and promoted so that secondary schools have better access to the network of Holocaust memorial sites and their pupils are given the opportunity to visit at least one of these sites in Europe during their school careers;

80. Requests that the Commission issue a call for projects to enable secondary school students to visit a site connected with the atrocities committed by totalitarian regimes in Europe;

81. Asks the Commission to issue calls for proposals in Erasmus+ to support schools in the fight against all forms of bullying and discrimination, and to enhance school psychological counselling;

82. Calls on the Commission to foster the role of Erasmus+ in increasing a sense of belonging, civic engagement, a better understanding of the Union and support for European values, and to turn the programme into a true promoter of European democracy;

83. Asks the Commission to introduce the EU citizenship education component with curricular and extracurricular activities, connected to learning mobility, which are certified by micro-credentials, develop active citizenship and embrace non-discrimination;

84. Welcomes the action’s learning component and asks the Commission to assess its outcomes with a view to strengthening the educational dimension by establishing stronger synergies between learning mobility and DiscoverEU;

85. Calls for the development of DiscoverEU in order to promote a more inclusive action;

86. Suggests considering ticket quotas for group trips, as insisting too rigidly that all peers in a group must be aged exactly 18 to qualify as a DiscoverEU group can be counterproductive;

87. Asks the Commission to assess options for a more integrated approach towards youth activities across EU programmes, learning from the experience of the European Year of Youth 2022 and in consultation with youth stakeholders on the design, implementation and evaluation of grants and instruments in the field of youth;

88. Calls on the Commission to strengthen the programme’s alignment with the EU Youth Strategy, the 11 youth goals and the outcomes of the EU Youth Dialogue; calls for a better definition of objectives and roles for projects in Key Action 2 in the field of youth in a way that reinforces youth work, the professional development of youth workers and non-formal education;