The UK government’s agreement with the EU to rejoin the Erasmus educational exchange scheme for university students, apprentices, sporting bodies and adult learners is a welcome confirmation that its wider “reset” with the EU is genuine. The decision follows those on scientific research, veterinary and electricity schemes; it may herald more important ones on the customs union, security and defence. A more explicit reconsideration of elements of Brexit by the Labour government is driven by growing evidence of its economic damage and geopolitical misjudgments. The Erasmus scheme pioneered by Jacques Delors and Irish commissioner Peter Sutherland in 1987, inspired by Renaissance humanism, has seen millions of students spend up to a year in places of learning elsewhere in Europe without paying additional fees. UK re-entry comes ahead of ambitious plans to extend the scope of what is now called the Erasmus + scheme in the next EU budgetary period.

Source: The Irish Times December 19, 2025 09:21 UTC