British university students will be able to return to the Erasmus programme. And their European colleagues (including Italians) will be able to return to study in the United Kingdom. The university exchange program was abandoned by the island after Brexit, when then Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the program did not offer good value for money. The Labor government agreed to reopen negotiations at last May’s UK-EU summit and sought to reduce the costs of British students’ participation.
London returns to the Erasmus programme
Starting from January 2027, British students will be able to return to participate in Erasmus, the European Union’s exchange program worth over 26 billion euros. The agreement – according to rumors in the English media – should be announced tomorrow 17 December, as part of Keir Starmer’s government’s strategy to relaunch relations with Brussels. According to sources cited by Guardianthe final details would have been agreed by the two parties and include access for UK students to both university exchanges and professional training courses under Erasmus+.
What happens now
According to what was reported by the British newspaper, London’s objective would be to reduce the costs of participation for the country and extend the benefits of the program beyond the traditional academic exchanges of university students to a wider section of the population, also involving the territories that had voted for Brexit.
The negotiation would have been unblocked after the meeting in Brussels last week between the British minister for relations with the EU, Nick Thomas-Symonds, and the vice-president of the European commission Maros Sefcovic, during which the Erasmus program – which is worth 26 billion euros and has involved millions of students in Europe for years – would have overcome the last obstacle.
The initiative appears destined to mark a new step on the road to that reset through which Starmer’s Labor government intends to carry forward a rapprochement with the EU: while continuing for now to exclude any prospect of reversing Brexit, of rejoining the Brussels club tout court, or even just the single market and customs union.
