During this period of emergency, the spread of Covid-19 negatively affects many activities in the field of the Erasmus+ programme and European Solidarity Corps (ESC). The European Commission goal is monitoring the situation daily in order to update its measures that might become mandatory or necessary. One of the most important objectives is the safety of the ongoing Erasmus+ or ESC participants all around Europe so it has been fundamental to improve the communication among home institutions, participants and National Agencies. For these reasons, each National Agency (for decentralised projects) and the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA)(for centralised projects) have improved their support to home institutions, which must contact participants and volunteers in order to face their needs.
For beneficiary organizations, which gained grants for their projects or which should have implemented projects during these two months, the European Commission is providing flexibility trying to postpone all the planned activities within the legal framework submitted.
The main measures taken by the European Commission are:
1. National Agencies can use the force majeure cause in all cases where the application of national limitations affects the implementation of Erasmus+ or European Solidarity Corps projects.
2. All planned activities can be postponed by up 12 months per project.
3. The ongoing Erasmus+ projects can reschedule planned activities for Spring 2020
4. Deadline for ongoing calls have been postponed with some new conditions (signed mandates are not mandatory for example)
For students and recent graduated students, which should have started their mobility, National Agencies will support them in different ways:
-For ongoing Erasmus+ mobility students, who have returned to their country, they can virtually continue their Erasmus mobility, maintaining their Erasmus scholarship and following distance teaching activities that the institutes in the countries of destination of mobility will make available, in compliance with the study plan (Erasmus Learning Agreement approved)
-For recent graduated students, National Agencies have extended the time to start their mobility: they will have 18 months (not 12) from their graduation to proceed.
For more information, follow INDIRE website for Italian National Agency projects news: http://www.indire.it/
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