Erasmus+:  What happened and what is changing

December is the ideal moment to take stock of an intense year: to look back, observe emerging trends and ask ourselves whether this has been a year of consolidation or a year of transition.

As always, we start from the data.

How was the 2025 budget allocated?

In 2025, the European Commission allocated a total budget of €4.42 billion, as established by the Financing Decision adopting the Erasmus+ Annual Work Programme 2025.

The distribution follows the programme’s traditional priorities:

• Education & Training (including Jean Monnet): €3.965 billion

• Youth: €379.28 million

• Sport: €76.29 million

2025 represents a threshold year within the 2021–2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), with 83% of the total budget already committed since the start of the seven-year period.

This is a highly relevant figure and invites at least two reflections.

Looking ahead to 2026, it becomes increasingly essential to ground application strategies in solid data, aligning short-term opportunities with long-term positioning.

What current changes tell us about the future

The transformations underway within the Erasmus+ programme already anticipate some of the trends that will influence negotiations for the next MFF, and therefore the future priorities for European investment.

This is not a new phenomenon. During the previous 2014–2020 MFF, the final years (2019–2020) also saw a clear reinforcement of funding, particularly under Key Action 1 (Mobility), with a strong increase in Youth projects, before the Covid-19 emergency disrupted the system.

It was precisely during that phase that the foundations were laid for innovations that later became structural, such as the Erasmus+ accreditation system.

Round 1 vs Round 2: what changed in 2025

The year 2025 marked a shift in the distribution of Erasmus+ funding.

As highlighted by deadlines and allocation data, the main budget envelopes were absorbed already in Round 1, generating two immediate effects:

• An increase in the number of projects funded in the first round, with a concentration of medium- to large-scale projects, combined with a decline in success rates across many National Agencies.

• An almost complete closure of Round 2 in most EU countries (with few exceptions, such as Luxembourg), significantly reducing opportunities for a second application.

At the same time, competition has also intensified for centralised calls managed directly by Brussels, leading to a natural decrease in overall success rates.

Several factors help explain this dynamic:

• The resubmission of projects not funded in the two 2024 rounds, which saturated absorption capacity.

• The cap of 10 proposals per organisation, now fully operational, affecting both funding distribution and strategic planning.

• A growing gap between “strong” Erasmus+ countries and those making more limited use of the programme.

This gap is evident not only in the distribution of projects funded in the March round, but also in the decision not to open new opportunities in the October round, traditionally smaller and underfunded.