35 Years of the Erasmus Programme

A blend of two defining elements of the Erasmus programme: its original intellectual inspiration — Erasmus himself — and an allegory of his influence on Europe. The former is represented by one of the best-known portraits of Erasmus; the latter by a web of connections arcing from beacon to beacon across the coin, evoking the countless academic and human exchanges among European students. Some of these connections form additional stars, born from the synergies between participating countries.

Fifth joint issue of the European Union. All 19 eurozone states issue a coin with the same design on varying dates. The coins differ only in the inscription, which appears in the respective national language.

No European education programme has changed the mobility of young people as lastingly as the Erasmus programme: since its launch in 1987, more than ten million students, trainees and teachers have completed part of their education abroad, supported by a network that today spans almost all EU member states as well as numerous partner countries. Its namesake, Erasmus of Rotterdam, was himself a wandering European scholar — the Dutch humanist and theologian taught and researched in the late 15th and early 16th centuries in Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Turin, Basel and other cities, becoming a symbolic figure of transnational, critically enlightened thought. Tellingly, his most influential work, "In Praise of Folly", was written while travelling, and his correspondence with scholars across Europe made him one of the first intellectuals whose sphere of influence spanned the continent as a whole.

For Malta, which joined the European Union in 2004 and adopted the euro in 2008, the Erasmus programme holds particular significance: as a small island state in the Mediterranean, the international opening of its education system is structurally more important for Malta than for many larger member states, since study periods abroad have traditionally held a high status in Maltese educational culture. The University of Malta, founded in 1592 and thus one of Europe's oldest higher education institutions, has long been integrated into the European university network. Today, Erasmus+ also encompasses vocational training, youth work and sport alongside higher education exchange. To mark the programme's 35th anniversary in 2022, all euro states jointly issued a commemorative coin with an identical design.