To help enhance the quality of university teaching and attract the best foreign students and academics to Europe, MEPs are fine-tuning phase two of the EU's Erasmus Mundus university co-operation and student mobility programme (2009-13). A report adopted by the Education and Culture Committee on Tuesday says it should be made easier for Erasmus students from third countries to obtain visas, and that tuition fees should not be imposed in countries that do not currently charge them. In the previous programme, 4,424 scholarships were granted from 2004-2008 to students from third countries and 323 universities took part, 265 of them in Europe.

The second phase of Erasmus Mundus (2009-13) is expected to start in 2009. Its key new features are the inclusion of joint doctoral programmes, more scholarships for European students and stepping up structural cooperation with third-country higher education institutions. Phase two also includes a mobility programme for all levels of higher education. 
 
The new programme, which has a budget of about €950 million, consists of three actions:

1. Breating joint master's degrees and doctorates (€450 million). These should be of a high academic standard, and each involve at least three European universities.
2. Establishing partnerships between European and third country universities (managed by the European Commission directorates-general for external relations and external co-operation - about €460 million), as a basis for structural co-operation exchange and mobility, including a scholarship scheme.
3. Promoting European higher education (€16.5 million).

"Europe's higher education must be competitive to attract the many foreign university students and teachers who previously went to study in the United States. The quality of higher education, its ability to disseminate knowledge and expertise, will make Europe a must, thanks to the centres of excellence to be developed through this programme. The aim is not to organise the brain drain, but, on the contrary, to train the future generations of emerging countries", said said Parliament's rapporteur, Marielle De Sarnez (ALDE, FR), after Tuesday's first-reading vote on her report on the Erasmus Mundus II programme (2009-2013).
 
The €950 million Erasmus Mundus II programme aims, proceeding the ERASMUS Programme in the field of lifelong learning (no. 1), to promote EU as a centre of academic excellence. It seeks to attract the best-qualified students and academics from third countries by offering high-quality master's or doctoral programmes created by consortia of universities from at least three different countries. The programme also seeks to create partnerships between universities within and beyond Europe, as well as promoting European higher education internationally.

For the second edition of the programme, Culture and Education Committee MEPs stress the need to focus on academic excellence and attracting the best students. To facilitate exchanges within the programme, they encourage Member States to consider introducing a specific visa for Erasmus Mundus beneficiaries as a way of achieving this. Also, As tuition fees are vary greatly among Member States, MEPs say that if a group of universities behind an Erasmus Mundus programme claim tuition fees, these fees should always comply with the national legislation, so that universities in countries like Denmark, where these fees are forbidden, are not  excluded.