Erasmus with a twist
After the success of Erasmus for students, apprentices, young entrepreneurs, higher education professionals and journalists, ALDE’s Vice-President in the European Committee of the Regions François Decoster now urges for an Erasmus programme for local representatives.
After a successful pilot project from 2012-2013 with more than 1 000 applications for only 100 available places, François Decoster is actively advocating a new training programme to test during the course of 2018 to 2020, with a view to including it in the European Commission’s new legislative planning to create a full Erasmus programme for locally elected representatives.
As for the costs, these can be shared by EU budgets, the respective local authorities of the representatives taking part and if need be by training bodies receiving public funds in member states. Among the next steps to take, Decoster proposes that the European Parliament supports this programme as it did in 2012 by proposing to include the pilot project for the budget in 2018 for implementation in 2019; while quickly establishing a working group with representatives of the European Commission, European Parliament and the European Committee of the Regions to develop and prepare this programme. “European institutions cannot ignore this call from local elected representatives, particularly in relation to the upcoming European elections of 2019” concludes Decoster.
François Decoster chaired the workshop “Erasmus for local and regional politicians” connected to his report during the European Week of Regions and Cities on October 10, 2017.
A version of this article appeared in Parliament Magazine’s Regional Review.
#Erasmus with a tilt: @Parlimag about @fdecoster‘s call for for a new training programme: https://t.co/BRzYP0Ov8Z. pic.twitter.com/gyrMTM5VWp
— ALDE-CoR (@ALDE_CoR) 3 October 2017