While the EU-Middle East and North Africa (MENA) pact undoubtably has real political advantages, its long-term migratory effect also needs to be mentioned. As part of the European Commission’s decision to double the budget for the Mediterranean area to €42 billion, the number of students from the MENA region in the EU’s in the Erasmus scheme will also be increased. The EU’s Mediterranean partners include Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia, countries, which are listed among the major countries of origin of the illegal migrants who try to enter Europe.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the Mediterranean as a ’bridge between continents for people, for goods, for ideas’ adding that Europe and the Mediterranean cannot exist without each other.
The EU’s Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica said the pact aims to connect young people and broaden the Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe programs, calling it the ’Mediterranean University.’ The pact would also help universities in the region develop joint degrees and programs with their counterparts in the EU, she noted.
When searching for the motivation behind such a measure, it is impossible to conclude anything other than that top bureaucrats in Brussels simply cannot get enough of migration, therefore have decided to increase the number of third-country nationals receiving European university scholarships.
As if there were not quite enough migrants in the Member States already.
‘The Pact for the Mediterranean sets out a new ambitious strategy. By investing in people, the initiative will reinforce the cultural, academic, social and economic ties that will make Europe stronger and more resilient.’, EU believes. European taxpayers will fund projects benefiting the region while migrants from Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia will be welcomed to Europe as participants of student exchanges, according to the Commission.
When tasting the meaning of these statements – in addition to asking the question of who the hell from Europe wishes to participate in a student exchange programme in Palestine or Syria -, it is worth take a brief look at the Erasmus programme first. Launched in 1987, the Erasmus programme was originally established to promote closer cooperation between universities and higher education institutions across Europe. Over time, the programme has expanded and is now referred to as Erasmus+, combining the EU’s different schemes for transnational cooperation and mobility in education, training, youth and sport in Europe and beyond.
The abovementioned stance of the Commission suggests that it is impossible to find well-educated Europeans from the entire so-called ’Erasmus generation’ – young Europeans who have participated in the programme, who think of themselves as European citizens and who are assumed to support the idea of the EU more than anyone else – who could be entrusted with the future of the bloc. Instead, the EU’s top bureaucrats are ready to express their deepest faith in young people from Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, etc., in the hope that they will eventually get Europe in order.
With its ill-considered decision to let more third-country students in the bloc, the European Commission seems to ignore some obvious fears that this student policy will have potential consequences. One of them is that non-EU nationals are expected to remain in the EU after their studies and, thier families can also easily join them.
This initiative of flooding European universities with non-EU nationals from the Middle East and North Africa, seems to be harmful both from the perspective of the fact that several Member States try to limit immigration, and that with the increased number of third-country students the number of European students will obviously decrease. So, the decision not only risks a surge of mass migration but it eventually may contribute to a gradual sidelining of European young people in a European programme. In addition, an additional burden to the welfare systems in many Member States should also be mentioned as a potential consequence of the expansion of the Erasmus+ programme.
‘Beyond Erasmus+, migration and mobility if well managed can also be an opportunity, notably to address our labour needs in sectors facing workforce shortages. It is for this reason that legal pathways for mobility, including of students and researchers, will be addressed in line with EU and national competences.’, the Commission argues.
In this argument, the key is ‘if well managed’.
How well migration is managed in the EU shows a recent incident in Germany where the authorities arrested five men suspected of being militant Islamists planning an attack on a Christmas market. Three Moroccan nationals aged 22, 28 and 30, an Egyptian national aged 56 and a 37-year-old Syrian were detained on 13 December at a border crossing between Germany and Austria. The suspects – all from North Africa and the Middle East – intended to drive a vehicle into a Christmas market in Germany with the aim of killing or injuring as many European people as possible.
Concluding, with expanding the Erasmus+, the European Commission is opening a door to students from the Middle East and North Africa, regions heavily affected by migration. Moreover, all this will be implemented at the expense of European taxpayers while the increased number of non-EU students included in the Erasmus+ programme will put a heavy burden on Member States.
With this measure, the European Commission is, in fact, giving students from outside the bloc priority over young people from EU countries with the alleged hidden aim of creating a new European intellectual elite. This is deeply regrettable, moreover, it could even be considered a betrayal, considering that top officials of the EU, rather than building on the intellectual capital available within the bloc, are trying to recruit young people from a very different milieu with very different cultural traditions, and without any intention to let themselves be integrated in European societies. It also needs to be stressed that, with the intention of creating ’new Europeans’ from North African students, the European Commission also ignores significant risks posed by mass migration and related terrorism.
The Erasmus programme, which was once aimed at strengthening European identity, has been degraded by the Commission into a political tool that can further exacerbate migration to Europe. This means that one of the EU’s most visible success stories with 16 million people participating since 1987, has been stripped of its undisputable historical importance by the Commission, in order to play the game of creating a new European elite – from third country nationals or, put simply, migrants.
