Happy Birthday Europe, Happy Birthday Erasmus

On the 9th May, we celebrate the Europe Day, the anniversary, when Robert Schuman presented a new form of cooperation between the European states. Denmark, as the current president of this cooperation, today’s EU, therefore invited the National Agencies and the Erasmus ambassadors to Copenhagen to celebrate this anniversary together. The Erasmus ambassadors met one day before to share the current activities in the Erasmus countries for the celebrations of the programme and they discussed the Erasmus manifesto, in which the ambassadors express their wishes and requests for the Erasmus programme and its stakeholders. “It considers the achievements of Erasmus of the 25 years and looks forward to the evolution of the programme so that it can be of even greater service to European citizens and society in the coming years.”

“It is not important what I am today, it is important what I was before, an Erasmus student.” says Maurizio Oliviero, professor of law and Erasmus student ambassador of Italy about his experience. Commissioner Vassiliou highlighted again the importance of the programme and its achievements and pointed out that Erasmus students are more “confident, open and better prepared” for their future jobs and the Erasmus programme modernizes the Higher Education Institutions. The Danish Minister for Education Morten Ostergaard points out that 70% of companies have an international outlook when they recruit new employees and the Erasmus programme highlights the international attitude in the CV. But he also quotes ESN’s PRIME and emphasizes that still a lot has to be done in the field of recognition in order to make the programme even more successful.

Erasmus is a social experience and cannot be minimized to the academic part. Intercultural experience is as important as the academic experience and “you cannot read your way into another culture” says the Danish Erasmus student ambassador Nina Siig Simonsen during a panel discussion. ESN can only agree on this and expressed this opinion during the meeting and workshops a lot. Even one of our newest sections, ESN Rijeka, Croatia was presented through Jelena Simic, Erasmus student ambassador of Croatia. Other ESNers present were: Tania Berman (President of ESN), Katja Krohn (Vice President of ESN and Erasmus student ambassador of Germany), Julien Pea (Erasmus student ambassador of France), Madara Apsalone, (Erasmus student ambassador of Latvia), Frederik Strand Sardinoux (Erasmus student ambassador of Norway) , Laura Popa (Erasmus student ambassador of Romania), Viktor Avlonitis (President of ESN Copenhagen). Furthermore did we meet ESN Copenhagen and ESN DIT at the concert after the conference, where unfortunately only a few students found their way to the celebrations due to Copenhagen’s typical rain.