The Erasmus+ budget is the central fight in Parliament’s negotiating mandate for the 2028-2034 programme, which MEPs adopted with 454 votes in favour, 34 against and 93 abstentions during the October plenary session. Parliament wants €47.39 billion in current prices, against the €40.8 billion that the Commission proposed on 16 July 2025 under COM(2025) 549.

Rapporteur Bogdan Zdrojewski, an EPP member from Poland, said the proposals would almost double the programme’s funding and welcomed the return of the United Kingdom. The gap between the two figures is about €6.6 billion, or roughly 16 percent above the Commission’s offer. That is a sizeable sum even by the standards of a seven-year budget, and it sets the opening position before any talks with governments begin.

The mandate also fixes how the money should flow. Education and learning would receive 74.6 percent of the total, youth and volunteering 15 percent and sport 4.1 percent. Those three shares add up to 93.7 percent, which leaves about 6.3 percent for everything else in the programme.

Beyond the headline figure, Parliament asks for grants that reflect differences in living costs, housing and inflation. A flat grant buys very different things in different member states, so the request addresses a familiar concern about fairness of access to the Erasmus+ budget. MEPs also want the European Solidarity Corps and the European Voluntary Humanitarian Aid Corps folded into Erasmus+. That would widen the remit of the programme and, by extension, the demands placed on the Erasmus+ budget.

Openness is another theme of the text. Parliament backs faster access for candidate countries without completing the association procedure, and it wants stronger ties with the United Kingdom and Switzerland. It also asks for alignment with the European Competitiveness Fund, Horizon Europe, Global Europe and the National and Regional Partnership funds. Coordination of that kind will matter in practice, because Erasmus+ would sit alongside several instruments that draw on the same long-term ceiling.

The next step is procedural rather than immediate. Parliament says it is ready to start negotiations with EU governments once it has adopted its full mandate, including overall funding levels for the 2028-2034 long-term budget. Until then the Erasmus+ budget figure remains a negotiating ask and not a settled number, because the final amount will depend on the wider budget package. The file runs under procedure 2025/0222(COD).

For universities, youth organisations and sport bodies, the Erasmus+ budget vote gives a concrete figure to point to as the talks approach. The size of the margin, 454 to 34, signals broad support across political groups for a larger Erasmus+ budget, although governments will weigh every euro against competing priorities in 2026 and beyond.