Some 144,000 university students of 31 European countries benefited from a period of study abroad, ranging from 3 to 12 months, in the academic year 2004/2005, thanks to the EU student-exchange programme Erasmus. During the same period over 20,000 university teachers had access to the same programme. Ján Figel, European Commissioner for education, training and culture, declared that the rapid integration of the new member states is contributing to the programme’s success. In 2007 Erasmus will celebrate its 20th anniversary: “The hundreds of thousands of students who have benefited from the programme since 1987 Figel added form an ever larger elite of Europeans, with an intercultural and multilingual experience, essential prerequisites for the EU of the future”. Last year “the number of students who took part in Erasmus exchange grew by over 6%, while the number of university professors who took part in an exchange as part of the same programme grew by almost 13%”. According to the Executive’s findings, “Spain remains the most popular destination among students” (25,000 arrivals in 12 months), followed by France, Germany and the UK. The Turkish universities participated in Erasmus for the first time last year: “1,142 Turkish students benefited from it; 342 students of other nationalities vice versa spent some months studying in Turkey”.
