The EU gave us Erasmus, and it could give us much more!
Naturally, the campaign for Britain to stay in the EU has been dominated by political and economic arguments. This is hardly surprising when the main reasons for joining the organisation are political or economic. However, there is a cultural sphere which deserves equal attention – after all, the UK will be impoverished in more ways than one if Brexit comes to pass.
Allow me to elaborate through the prism of what I believe to be the most successful of all EU policies – the Erasmus programme. For those not familiar with EU jargon, this is the programme which allows thousands of European university students to trade their own university for one year, with a counterpart in another (preferably sunnier) Member State. I did exactly this in my third year at university, and can safely say that it broadened my outlook and made me rethink the opportunities available to me in the future. Indeed, everyone I know who has participated in the programme has found it a transformational experience.
Over thirty years this programme has become known to almost all university students, and a sizeable proportion of graduates are members of the ‘Erasmus Generation.’ Nowadays, it is increasingly common for university graduates to have friends from all parts of Europe, to have a greater understanding of what it means to be European, and perhaps most importantly to speak another European language. The most recent impact study on the programme revealed an amusing illustration of this effect, estimating that 1 million babies have resulted from Erasmus exchanges since their inception in the late 1980s, owing to the fact that a third of former exchange students have partners from another European state. And although the programme receives scarce media coverage in the UK, we come in at number five in the ranking of countries that produce the most Erasmus participants. Even those students who don’t venture abroad almost inevitably come into contact with incoming Erasmus students, with our country being the fourth most popular destination in the programme.
At this point you may be thinking that this primarily benefits the Erasmus students themselves, but it has a much deeper significance – one which struck me a few months back whilst I was bored in a lecture, sat alongside 120 other bored students from Europe East & West, and even beyond. It hit me that the fact of sitting in a room with friends from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union would have been literally impossible for my parents’ generation, and now we all benefit from the intercultural exchange which is possible in our New Europe. What’s more, when my grandparents were in their twenties, our continent was at war, leaving it nigh-on impossible to strike up a friendship with anyone from outside the British Isles. Anyone living in today’s Europe of cheap flights, city breaks and Erasmus exchanges must surely ask themselves ‘why on earth would we turn our backs on an organisation which has been tearing down barriers for decades?’
Perhaps I’m a bit misty-eyed about the whole thing, but I can’t help thinking that the Erasmus generation is symbolic of how far Europe has come. Already many are suggesting that Erasmus has irrevocably changed our graduates, with clear implications for the European leaders of the future. Instead of the current crop of monolingual figures who have never lived outside of their own state, the leaders of the future will likely be multilingual, open-minded and fully aware that as Europeans we have more that unites us than divides us. As the late Italian novelist Umberto Eco put it, Erasmus has created “the first generation of Europeans.”
This is, in short, why I believe Erasmus to be the most successful policy of the EU. And yet, it could be better still. Currently the Erasmus programme is largely limited to a university-educated elite, who are clearly not the only potential beneficiaries. I would like to see the programme expanded, for instance to Europe’s apprentices or young professionals, who could draw exactly the same benefits as a university student. It’s likely that the programme will develop in this, and other, new directions in the future, and we can only be a part of it if we remain in the EU. Of course, we could arrange an exchange programme off our own bat, but we would certainly lose something by disconnecting ourselves from the rest of the programme.
If we take Erasmus and other cultural policies into account, I believe the message is twofold. Firstly, in arguing to stay in the EU, it would do no harm to consider the bigger picture, rather than concentrating on narrow zero-sum games over trade, immigration or sovereignty. Secondly, we should take stock of what leaving really means. Few would deny that the EU is going through a rough patch at the moment, but I still think its achievements far outweigh its pitfalls. We live in a continent where war has become unthinkable, and Europeans are closer to one another than ever before. If this is the real meaning of “ever closer union,” I fail to see why we should oppose it.
