The UK has agreed to “work towards” re-joining the Erasmus+ student exchange programme and developing a “youth experience scheme” that could impact international studies as part of a deal intended to reset relations with the European Union.

As prime minister Keir Starmer hosted European Council president António Costa and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen at a summit in London, the UK government published details of the , the first of its kind post-Brexit.

The agreement offered few details on the UK’s potential Erasmus+ association other than the intention to hold talks. This still marks a significant change in direction for Starmer’s government, which stated last August that it had .

Details of the potential “youth experience scheme” were similarly scarce, but the government said  that the initiative, which would involve a specific visa path, “would be capped and time-limited” and would “mirror existing schemes the UK has with countries such as Australia and New Zealand”.

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Kurt Deketelaere, secretary-general of the League of European Research Universities, said the agreement offered “nice words but no decisions”. 

“Obviously, we are very much in favour of youth mobility as well as the Erasmus+ association,” Deketelaere said. “If you realise how long they have already been talking about this, it is a pity that even this high-level event could not lead to breakthroughs and decisions about both issues.”

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“We hope that negotiations go ahead as soon as possible and lead to firm agreements as soon as possible,” he added. 

Ahead of the summit, the Coimbra Group, which comprises of 39 universities across Europe,  that its members “strongly support the establishment of a youth opportunity scheme between the EU and the UK”.

Listing enhanced “academic progress, social resilience, intercultural understanding [and] individual employability”, as well as “the development of a highly skilled and globally minded workforce”, as benefits of the international exchange, the Coimbra Group acknowledged that “realism is needed” at a time of “significant financial constraints” for many universities.

Nick Hillman, director of the ����Vlog Policy Institute (HEPI), said before the summit that while the UK’s association to Erasmus+ “looks good on paper”, ultimately “the devil will be in the detail”.

“As a country, we are woeful – and have been getting worse – at learning other languages. Spending time learning in another country provides wonderful opportunities and builds understanding between nations,” . “However, we could have stayed in Erasmus+ when Brexit happened and we chose not to because it seemed an expensive programme that saw far more people arrive on UK shores than travel from the UK to study elsewhere.”

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�ճ����Sunday Times has reported that the UK-EU deal could involve a return to EU students paying domestic fees in the UK, a move that was not mentioned in the agreement published on 19 May. Hillman described the potential step as “superficially attractive”, stating that it “comes with a host of tricky implementation challenges”.

“Unlike when the [Brexit] referendum happened, universities [now] lose money on their home students and if EU students are to be treated like home students again, then institutions could likely lose even more money,” he said. “They may need to respond by imposing a tight cap on the total number of subsidised places, which could have the effect of EU students displacing British students.”

“Moreover, non-EU nations may seek their own favourable treatment in their own trade deals with the UK.”

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Diana Beech, director of the Finsbury Institute at St George’s, University of London, said such a recategorisation would “instantly wipe thousands of pounds off the value of each EU student to UK universities at a time when every penny counts”. 

She suggested the government look at a scheme that could “underwrite the lost international fee income on every incoming EU student for every outgoing home student undertaking an EU placement as part of a European languages or wider cultural studies course” as a way of boosting struggling departments and incentivising two-way mobility.

Asked at a press conference about the impact on the youth experience scheme on tuition fees, Starmer said that the agreement “doesn't deal with university fees...so there’s no change there”.

A spokesperson for Universities UK said the “proposals promise exciting opportunities for young people from all parts of the UK and represent a further positive step forward in the bilateral relationship”.

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“Measures that enable greater academic and student exchange between the UK and our European partners will be warmly welcomed by universities both here and in the EU. We look forward to working with all parties on the next phase of negotiations.”

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com