Changes from plenary report to adopted text

89. Calls on the EACEA and the NAs to create a communications strategy that reaches out to new youth organisations, particularly those led by or working with youth with fewer opportunities, and to provide them with additional support in writing project proposals and capacity building using Support, Advanced Learning and Training Opportunities for Youth (SALTO);

90. Recalls the need for sufficient funds for small partnerships in all sectors of the programme to facilitate entry by small organisations and inexperienced persons, and to offer them real prospects for development;

91. Insists that the programme is key to establishing the European Education Area and asks for greater synergies with the European Solidarity Corps programme; urges the Commission and the Member States to initiate an open method of coordination on the mutual recognition of competences acquired during periods of European mobility or civic engagement;

92. Suggests that the programme offer greater support to measures such as individual learning accounts and micro-credentials which improve the permeability of educational systems;

93. Stresses the importance of promoting mobility among VET students, among other reasons in order to reach young people with fewer opportunities; calls on the Member States to develop synergies between Erasmus+ and other funding programmes to facilitate learning mobility among VET learners and low-skilled workers and to improve territorial and regional cooperation;

94. Urges the development of a dedicated online tool tailored to the needs of teachers, instructors and learners in initial and continuing VET, as the current tools have proven insufficient;

95. Calls on the Commission to discuss with the co-legislators, as early as possible, its vision on the sustainable continuation of the Centres of Vocational Excellence as a flagship initiative;

96. Calls for a holistic educational approach within the Centres of Vocational Excellence and calls on the Member States to make these centres the driving force behind the development of joint European VET qualifications, curricula and diplomas;

97. Calls on the Commission to study the status of VET learners who are on mobility; insists that the organisations hosting apprenticeships be required to sign a quality charter in line with the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education and calls for better monitoring of the working conditions and for adequate remuneration for the individuals participating in Erasmus+ apprenticeships;

98. Suggests that the programme continue to support projects that promote a wide variety of skills, including artisanal crafts, in order to preserve them;

99. Calls on the Commission to reconsider its adult learning strategy in collaboration with NAs and relevant stakeholders, given the target of 60 % of adults participating in adult learning and education by 2030;

100. Calls on the Commission to increase the visibility of the support available for adult learning and education activities; suggests that unspent funds are not immediately siphoned away to other actions but used for cooperation in adult education and to ease the uptake of mobility among adult learners with fewer opportunities through awareness campaigns, easy-to-fill-in applications and greater synergies with the European Social Fund Plus across Member States;

101. Calls on the Commission to improve communication on and the promotion of sport funding in Erasmus+; calls for a better representation of sport associations in the awarded projects, as non-sport organisations such as non-governmental organisations and consultancies are often over-represented as beneficiaries;

102. Stresses that the programme’s capacity to provide support in crisis situations is necessarily very limited and the Commission should additionally facilitate cooperation between Member States to address common challenges comprehensively, safeguarding the programme from being overloaded;

103. Calls on the Commission and the NAs to endeavour to ensure that prospective participants, who are third country nationals, residing lawfully in the EU, do not face difficulties during the application process, making the programme truly inclusive;

104. Points out that cooperation with non-associated third countries can be very difficult, and calls on the Commission to systematically monitor, improve and strengthen the international dimension of the programme;

105. Asks that closer attention be paid to issues concerning the international dimension of the programme such as data protection rules for non-EU countries, the impact of geopolitical issues and visa-related issues;

106. Calls on the Commission to provide for the necessary programme flexibility in the design of the next generation of Erasmus+, while ensuring uniformity and proper scrutiny of the programme, including by Parliament;

107. Insists that NAs, beneficiaries and other stakeholders, including young people, and Parliament are actively involved in a continual, dialogue-based process to optimise the current and the next generation of Erasmus+; suggests that the Commission explore how AI tools can be used to aid with the evaluation of the programme and provide clearer insights into needs and possible developments without replacing human decision-making;

108. Asks the Commission to re-evaluate the need for increased visibility of the direct link between the EU and Erasmus+ as its flagship programme in order to increase awareness of that link among current and future beneficiaries;

109. Urges the Commission and the Member States to ensure that synergies between Erasmus+ and other programmes such as Horizon Europe or the European Social Fund Plus are fully exploited, and that the programme is better connected with other EU policies such as the 2020-2025 anti-racism action plan; and the EU Disability Rights Strategy 2021-2030;

110. Requires timely updates from the new inter-programme group between the Commission’s Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture and its Directorate-General for Research and Innovation on its results in terms of synergies between Horizon Europe and Erasmus+;

111. Stresses the need to accelerate synergies between the European Education Area, the Digital Education Action Plan and the European Skills Agenda in shaping a digital education policy;

112. Requests the Commission, the EACEA and NAs to analyse and systematically implement concrete measures that break down existing silos in the programme structure in order to increase synergies between different educational areas and actors so as to improve permeability and rebalance the programme, while maintaining the distinctions that are necessary for effective political scrutiny;

113. Calls for centralised and decentralised actions to be better linked and for the use of flexible funding instruments such as micro-grants to be enhanced; suggests that given the positive experiences gained with micro-grants during the pandemic, they should be maintained in a targeted way;

114. Calls on the Commission to conduct proper piloting and testing when introducing new administrative measures such as top-ups and lump sums to avoid creating additional administrative barriers to beneficiaries;

115. Calls for operating grants to support the development of strategic sectors that often rely on volunteers and for structured and regular cooperation between stakeholders and beneficiary representative organisations;

116. Calls for an improvement in the quality of evaluations of operating grants;

117. Encourages stronger incentives and better guidance so that the Seal of Excellence label will start having a tangible positive impact on Erasmus+;

118. Calls on the Commission to consistently follow up on any indications that an accredited beneficiary does not respect European values, with the aim of ensuring confidence in the established accreditation mechanism and to take appropriate action as a result, which must lead to expulsion if the allegations are substantiated and cannot be immediately and permanently remedied; points to the need for stricter monitoring in the next programing period;

119. Calls on the Commission to take better account of fraud, such as letterbox companies or inclusion top-ups that do not actually reach groups with fewer opportunities, and to make the actions taken to counter such abuses more transparent;

120. Calls for more gradual and predictable budgetary increases in the next multiannual financial framework programming period, and insists that, from the very beginning in 2028, funding levels must not be less than those of the last year of the current programme (2027) in order to ensure the smooth continuity and stability of the programme’s actions and activities;

121. Declares its determination to ensure a substantial increase in the Erasmus+ budget in the 2028-2034 programming period and commits itself to tripling the current envelope, taking the requirements of the programme into account;

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122. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the Erasmus+ National Agencies.