On 28 November, the European Commission adopted a new support package for higher education in the European neighbourhood area. This region is comprised of countries in the southern Mediterranean (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian Territory, Syria) as well as in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Russia). The funding will be provided through the Erasmus Mundus and Tempus IV programmes, both of which support cooperation with higher education outside of the European Union.

The support package will be made available in 2013. The total of funds earmarked for Tempus IV cooperation with neighbourhood countries will be EUR 58.85 million. The additional funding for Erasmus Mundus for the neighbourhood countries amounts to EUR 74.2 million.  The European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle, announced the top-up with this statement: “Investing in people is a key objective of the neighbourhood policy. This is the reason why we have significantly increased the funding for our higher education programmes in the neighbourhood during the last years."

European Commission – Press release

EU Neighbourhood Info Center