Press release
MEPs adopt media and culture programmes
Culture - 25-10-2006 - 14:40
Parliament approved a total of five second-reading recommendations on educational and cultural programmes for 2007 .The House was keen for the agreement to be confirmed so as to get the programmes up and running in January 2007. With the adoption of one of the reports, the monthly Erasmus grant will increase from €150 to €200 from 1 January 2007.
Doris PACK (EPP-ED) was happy to announce that after renegotiations with the Council the budget of the Lifelong Learning Programme was now €6970 million instead of the €6200 million agreed at an earlier stage. This programme consists of six programmes: Comenius (schools up to secondary level), Erasmus (higher education), Leonardo da Vinci (vocational training) and Grundtvig (adult education) plus a Transversal Programme (focusing on policy development, language learning tools, e-learning and the spread of best practice) and the Jean Monnet Programme (study, research and teaching about European integration). The Erasmus grant from 2007 will now be €200 per month, an increase of €50 from the previous programme.
Lissy GRONER's (PES, D) recommendation on Youth in Action was also approved without amendments. This programme is intended to foster active citizenship of young European citizens and has an agreed budget of €785 million.
Europe for Citizens is a programme to promote active European citizenship. Thanks to Parliament's first reading amendments, the programme's general objectives will include enhancing tolerance by promoting intercultural dialogue and the programme will be open to legal residents from third countries. Measures to keep alive the memories of the crimes committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes have also been supported by Council. Rapporteur: Hannu TAKKULA (ALDE, FI). Agreed budget: €190 million.
MEDIA is a programme to support the European TV and cinema industries. Previous MEDIA programmes have made major contributions to Europe's audiovisual sector and have delivered good value in doing so. Approximately 90% of non-national European films have been supported by the MEDIA programme. For every euro invested, the MEDIA Plus programme (2001-2006) has generated €5.75 in follow-up investment, €2.83 in education, €7.2 in distribution and €4.19 in development.
Rapporteur: Ruth HIERONYMI (EPP-ED, DE).
Agreed budget: €671 million.
Culture 2007-2013 seeks to promote the mobility of workers active in the field of culture, to encourage the cross-border circulation of works of art and of culturally significant objectives and to foster inter-cultural dialogue.
Rapporteur: Vasco GRAÇA MOURA (EPP-ED, PT).
Agreed budget: €354 million.
REF.: 20061020IPR11882