The European Commission has announced a new plan to open the EU’s Erasmus exchange program to students from Africa and the Middle East, further pushing the agenda of letting in people from these regions instead of improving the lives of Europeans. The new initiative, part of the “Pact for the Mediterranean” would extend Erasmus and Horizon Europe to countries including Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia. It also proposes doubling the EU’s budget for that region to €42 billion. Hungary, an EU member state, remains excluded from the Erasmus program after the European Commission suspended grants to several of its universities to punish Hungary for its conservative stance on migration, LGBT issues, and the rule of law.
