Fresh proposals to ease barriers to student travel

Date: 03/10/1996

By Tim Jones

“IT IS easier today for goods and capital to circulate in the European Union than it is for people.”

With these words, Education Commissioner Edith Cresson launched a consultative Green Paper on how to ensure that students, researchers and apprentices can move freely around the EU.

Crossing borders within the Union in pursuit of education or training has never been simple and is not becoming any easier, even though the number of people choosing to study abroad is growing.

ERASMUS, the student exchange programme, has expanded to include 170,000 students, compared with just 3,000 in 1987-88.

“The examples of obstacles are legion and often absurd,” said the Commissioner.

An unemployed person keen to be trained in a new discipline in another member state stands to lose social security or welfare payments if the course lasts for more than three months.

Similarly, young graduates undergoing training elsewhere in the EU can forfeit standard unemployment rights because they are considered to be neither students nor workers.

Even Cresson's recent proposal for a European voluntary work programme to encourage young people to go to other EU countries to help in deprived areas could be undermined by this gaping hole in the single market. Young volunteers could find themselves running into the same problems as a graduate after three months, or even subject to tax.

Candidates entitled to a study grant from their national authorities can see it disappear if they choose to work abroad and, on returning, may find that the qualifications achieved in another member state are not recognised at home.

The Green Paper comes up with a series of specific recommendations to plug the gaps in a common European education and training system.

The most radical proposal is a call for a common definition of the legal status of 'trainees' or 'volunteers' which would guarantee their rights to social security and tax benefits and promote their cross-border mobility.

At the same time, says the Commission, study grants and scholarships should no longer be treated as 'territorial'. Until this is done, it argues, only the children of the wealthy will have the means to study or train abroad.