Through a recent decision of the EU member states, the list of languages in which preparatory courses for Erasmus students are offered and funded by the EU will now be extended to include Basque, Catalan and Galician, i.e. Spain’s co-official languages. Prospective Erasmus students who want to study at universities where these languages are used will be able to take advantage of this decision and prepare, language-wise, for their study period in Spain. The implementation of the decision will begin as of the 2010-2011 academic year.

The Erasmus Intensive Language Courses give future Erasmus students the possibility to prepare for their study period or placement abroad, by studying the language in question for a period of two to six weeks prior to the departure from their home country. Up until now, such funding was available only for the EU official languages, excluding the most widely spoken and taught (English, French, Spanish and German) but including Icelandic, Norwegian and Turkish. In the 2006-2007 academic year more than 4 000 students participated in these courses, organised in the country of destination.

European Commission