Erasmus turns 20 – time to grow up? - by Jean-Sébastien Lefebvre
Paris - Name: Erasmus. Date of birth : 1987. Birthplace: Brussels - the European institutions are rather proud of their baby, which celebrates 20 years in 2007
'Erasmus is the symbol of what Europe does best. A Europe of facts, of results.' These are the laudatory terms in which José Manuel Barroso defined the European exchange program that will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2007. In 1987, only 3, 000 pioneers had tried the experience of studying abroad for one or two semesters. Nowadays, about 150 000 students per year choose to travel to a different university. This adds up to a total of one and a half million students who, in twenty years, will have travelled among European universities.
It was the European students' forum (AEGEE), led by Franck Biancheri, 27 at the time, which was the first to put forward the concept of the project. The French President, François Mitterrand supported the idea. A few months later, the student exchange programme was born under the name of Erasmus. For the past twenty years, France has been the country with the highest number of participants. A little more than 217, 000 of its students left home to go on Erasmus trips, followed closely by the Germans (216, 000) and the Spaniards (191, 000). The most popular destination remains Spain, host to an average of nearly 25, 000 Erasmus students every year.
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