Miracles happen: the new generation of EU programmes, the Lifelong Learning Programme, is now very likely to enter into force on 1 January 2007. The final step in the legislation process to adopt the ‘Lifelong Learning Programme’ was at last taken, when, on 25 October, the European Parliament adopted the Commission’s proposals for the new action programme. The programme will cover the period 2007-2013, and is the successor to the current Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci and eLearning programmes. The budget allocated to the programme is € 6 970 million Euros.

The Lifelong Learning Programme will have four pillars or sub-programmes which correspond to the current programmes in preschools to secondary education, higher education, vocational training and adult education. The following sums have been allocated to each pillar:

• Comenius: € 1,047 million;
• Erasmus: € 3,114 million;
• Leonardo da Vinci: € 1,725 million;
• Grundtvig: € 358 million.

Further sums have been allocated to

• a “transversal programme”: € 369 million;
• the new Jean Monnet programme: € 170 million.

The decision puts an end to a long negotiation process, which started in 2005 and reached a crucial point in January 2006, with the Parliament’s rejection of the EU budget proposal submitted by heads of state and government (see ACA Newsletter – Education Europe editions May, November and December 2005, January 2006 and April 2006). The budget originally proposed by the European Commission was € 13.62 billion for the total period 2007-2013.

What’s next: a call for proposals for the new programme generation is scheduled to be published in December 2006.