00:00At the gates of the University of Seville in the south of Spain, a group of students begin to gather.
00:07It is one of the welcome events for Erasmus students who are about to begin classes.
00:20For many of them, the new course does not begin in classes. Instead, it begins with a tour to get to know the city.
00:31According to the Erasmus Student Network, Spain has been the country with the most Erasmus students with about 150,000 this year alone.
00:46Madrid is the main destination with nearly 10,000 students, followed by Barcelona, Valencia and Seville, chosen this year as one of the destinations best valued by the students.
00:54Other best valued cities include Porto, Istanbul and Sofia.
01:13The cuts in the financing of Erasmus projects could have a repercussion that goes far beyond the university environment,
01:20especially in the local economies of cities like Seville, which see every year how the number of Erasmus students increases.
01:27Thanks to the Erasmus program, the University of Seville received nearly €7 million of investments this year.
01:34An additional €10 million could be injected into the economy from the use of services in the city, catering to over 2,300 students.
01:57A lot of foreign students come and consume a lot. Thanks to them, thanks to the university, we have a lot of clients.
02:05And the business is doing very well thanks to what they consume and what they spend.
02:10MEPs on the EU Parliament Budget Committee have opposed the proposal to cut about €295 million from the Erasmus program.
02:30Most of the students who travel for the program are the French, followed by Germans and, in third place, the Spanish.
02:38This year has seen almost 400,000 fewer participants in the Erasmus program compared to last year,
02:46the first time that the numbers have started to fall after the pandemic.
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