On 29 March 2017, the United Kingdom submitted the notification of its intention to withdraw from the Union pursuant to Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). The Treaties will cease to apply to the United Kingdom from the date of entry into force of a withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after that notification, namely from 30 March 2019, unless the European Council, in agreement with the United Kingdom, unanimously decides to extend that period.
(2)
The withdrawal occurs during the 2014-2020 programming period of the Erasmus+ programme in which the United Kingdom is participating.
(3)
Regulation (EU) No 1288/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) establishes and governs the Erasmus+ programme. This Regulation should lay down rules in order to allow for the continuation of legal commitments already undertaken, in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 1288/2013, with regard to ongoing learning mobility activities involving the United Kingdom, after its withdrawal from the Union.
(4)
From the date on which the Treaties cease to apply to the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom will cease to be a programme country within the meaning of Article 24(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1288/2013. In order to avoid current Erasmus+ participants being required to interrupt their ongoing learning mobility activities, the rules on the eligibility of ongoing learning mobility activities under the Erasmus+ programme should be adapted.
(5)
For the purposes of the continuation of financing of ongoing learning mobility activities from the Union budget, the Commission and the United Kingdom should agree to allow the exercise of controls and audits of those activities. If the necessary controls and audits cannot be carried out, this should be considered a serious deficiency in the management and control system.
(6)
Since the objective of this Regulation, namely to allow for the continuation of ongoing learning mobility activities involving the United Kingdom which have started at the latest on the date on which the Treaties cease to apply to the United Kingdom, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather, by reason of its scale and effects, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, as set out in Article 5 TEU. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.
(7)
In view of the fact that, in the absence of a withdrawal agreement or of an extension of the two-year period after the United Kingdom's notification, the Treaties will cease to apply to the United Kingdom from 30 March 2019 and in view of the need to ensure, prior to the date of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union, the continuation of ongoing learning mobility activities under the Erasmus+ programme, it was considered appropriate to provide for an exception to the eight-week period referred to in Article 4 of Protocol No 1 on the role of national Parliaments in the European Union, annexed to the TEU, to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and to the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community.
(8)
This Regulation should enter into force as a matter of urgency on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union and should apply from the day following that on which the Treaties cease to apply to the United Kingdom unless a withdrawal agreement concluded with the United Kingdom has entered into force by that date,
