The European exchange programme has had a lasting impact on the lives of millions of Europeans. EuroparlTV met some of them.

Reporter: 25 years of Erasmus programme

The European student exchange  programme is already 25 years old.

It has clocked up 3 million stories  of encounters and discovery.

The Parliament is now working  on a Commission proposal

to create an Erasmus for All in 2014  with a budget of 19 billion euros.

25 years of Erasmus  is a mosaic of stories.

But 3 million participants in 25 years  is ultimately not much

compared to the number of students  and teachers who might benefit from it.

Yet all gain from it a lasting memory  and considerable assets.

Piroska Bakos realised  her childhood dream

of presenting the news  on Hungarian national TV.

At 23, she received an Erasmus grant to  study mass media in Frankfurt, Germany.

I became more self-reliant  than I had been before,

and I had to find my way around  in all kinds of difficult situations.

This of course helped me a lot  in my job as a journalist later.

Resourcefulness, but also  knowledge of foreign languages.

since at the time there were  only a few people in Hungarian television

Tomás Sánchez López crossed Europe,  leaving his country, Spain, to go to Finland.

A real contrast that was  the starting point of his career.

He now works in the Research  and Technology unit of EADS,

the European aerospace  and defence corporation.

It wouldn't have been possible to get this job  if I hadn't had previous research experience.

I couldn't have gone to Cambridge  without my doctorate in Korea,

and I could not have gone to Korea  if I hadn't had the Erasmus experience.

Not to mention its significance  to his love life.

I'm married to someone from  a different country, who is not Spanish.

I would never have met her  if I hadn't been to Finland.

The classic Erasmus programme which  covers 33 countries helps open horizons.

Elena Luptak teaches dance  at the University of Vienna.

Erasmus allowed her to discover  a different way to dance, in Turkey.

By observing the students  and teachers there

That's what I brought back  from Istanbul.

In my life, I feel it's important to open  borders between nations and people.

let's look at what we can learn from others,

But 25 years after its launch,  Erasmus still has shortcomings.

We visited the offices of the independent  Erasmus Student Network

The two main obstacles that students face  are, on the one hand, academic recognition,

because PRIME, our study within the ESN,

proved that only 73% of students have their  studies abroad fully recognised at home.

And the other main problem  is the funding of the studies abroad,

as many students still see it as a major  obstacle to benefitting from time abroad.

In expanding to Erasmus for All,  will the programme resolve these issues?

From 2014, the seven education, training,  youth and sport exchange programmes

will become one, Erasmus for All, in the  hope of increasing the number of grants.