EU institutions are expected to begin negotiating the 2025 budget in November. If the proposed cut in funding for Erasmus is approved, nearly all countries in the programme will be affected, but even more, Spain, which has been the main destination for Erasmus students since 2001.
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00:00At the gates of the University of Seville in the south of Spain, a group of students begin to gather.
00:07It is one of the welcome events for Erasmus students who are about to begin classes.
00:20For many of them, the new course does not begin in classes. Instead, it begins with a tour to get to know the city.
00:31According to the Erasmus Student Network, Spain has been the country with the most Erasmus students with about 150,000 this year alone.
00:46Madrid is the main destination with nearly 10,000 students, followed by Barcelona, Valencia and Seville, chosen this year as one of the destinations best valued by the students.
00:54Other best valued cities include Porto, Istanbul and Sofia.
01:13The cuts in the financing of Erasmus projects could have a repercussion that goes far beyond the university environment,
01:20especially in the local economies of cities like Seville, which see every year how the number of Erasmus students increases.
01:27Thanks to the Erasmus program, the University of Seville received nearly €7 million of investments this year.
01:34An additional €10 million could be injected into the economy from the use of services in the city, catering to over 2,300 students.
01:57A lot of foreign students come and consume a lot. Thanks to them, thanks to the university, we have a lot of clients.
02:05And the business is doing very well thanks to what they consume and what they spend.
02:10MEPs on the EU Parliament Budget Committee have opposed the proposal to cut about €295 million from the Erasmus program.
02:30Most of the students who travel for the program are the French, followed by Germans and, in third place, the Spanish.
02:38This year has seen almost 400,000 fewer participants in the Erasmus program compared to last year,
02:46the first time that the numbers have started to fall after the pandemic.