ERASMUS - Changing lives, opening minds for 25 years

The silver anniversary of the Erasmus programme in 2012 also means a year full of celebrations for the Erasmus Student Network. The European Commission and other European institutions started the celebrations officially with a kick-off conference in Brussels from 30th – 31st January 2012. They also elected 66 Erasmus ambassadors, two from each Erasmus country, who are representing the programme, mobility and success stories of Erasmus throughout the generations. From each country, one student and one staff ambassador was elected, whose lives were changed and strongly influenced by the Erasmus programme and who would not be where they are now without it. Other Participants of the conference were members of the European Parliament, the European Commission, the whole Erasmus unit of the Commission and members of the National Agencies.

ESN was represented with 4 people during the conference who have been chosen as student ambassadors of their countries: Madara Apsalone (Latvia), Katja Krohn (Germany), Julien Pea (France) and Frederik Strand-Sardinoux (Norway) Furthermore we met with former ESN members Daphne Scherer (trainee at the European Commission), Marc Goffart (founder of ESN Gent, Belgium, works at the Commission as well) and Desiree Majoor (Netherlands, who is the first president of ESN International). During the conference the new Erasmus programme “Erasmus for All” was presented and the ambassadors are working on a manifesto, which states the importance, the impact and future challenges, but also suggestions for the programme in order to even improve the success rate of Erasmus. Soon 3 million students will have been abroad with the programme and it should be even more in the future.

Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou emphasized the importance of the Erasmus programme in a press conference and even mentioned ESN in her speech at the gala dinner where every ambassador received a small award with their names engraved and some success stories were shown via small videos. It was also the possibility to mingle and share some experiences and talk with different Erasmus generations. The second day of the conference welcomed Doris Pack, President of the Committee for Culture and Education of the European Parliament, who spoke about the history and impact of the programme and what the Parliament thinks about the new proposal “Erasmus for All”. At the end of the conference all ambassadors had the chance to meet the new President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, who gave an enthusiastic speech about the programme and how it can change lives and easily switched from English, to French to German and emphasized the importance of the programme by stating “You can negotiate with me about everything, but not about Erasmus.”

By Katja Krohn

Find more pictures click here.

And a video with the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz talking about Erasmus.