The Erasmus programme is set to return to all Hungarian universities, Education and Children’s Affairs Minister Judit Lannert said on Facebook on Friday.
Lannert said the Hungarian government had taken all necessary steps by the end of August to make the Erasmus programme available to Hungarian university students again.
The 21 universities previously affected by the restrictions now have valid Erasmus mobility applications for the 2026–27 academic year, she said. This means Erasmus can once again return to these institutions, reopening international mobility opportunities for their students, Lannert added.
She stressed that Hungarian students and researchers belong in the European academic and higher education community, adding that the international mobility of Hungarian students must not become a victim of party-political interests again.
The Erasmus programme is an initiative of the European Commission and has operated in Hungary since 1998, when the first Hungarian students travelled abroad with its support. According to the programme’s website, around 300,000 people from Hungary have participated since its launch.
In 2022 the Council of the European Union decided that higher education institutions operated by public-interest asset management foundations could not enter into new Erasmus agreements because of concerns over conflicts of interest and transparency.
The restructuring of Hungary’s higher education system became one of the conditions for accessing EU recovery funds. As a result, Hungarian students at the affected institutions were excluded from the mobility programme from the 2024–25 academic year.
Following the exclusion, the previous government launched the Pannónia Scholarship Programme in 2024, providing budget-funded support for foreign study and professional mobility for students at universities that had undergone the foundation-based restructuring. More than 12,000 students had participated in the programme by the beginning of this year, according to information previously provided by former Minister for Culture and Innovation Balázs Hankó.
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