Erasmus+ is the European Commission's Program for education, training, youth and sport.

Erasmus+ offers the opportunity for higher education institutions (HEIs) to host a short teaching program or course in the field of EU studies, in a so called Jean Monnet Module. Such a Module can be for example:

• a general or introductory course on EU issues
• specialized teaching on EU developments

An organization intending to apply must be a HEI established anywhere in the world. If the HEI is from a Programme Country, it must hold a valid Erasmus Charter for Higher Education.

• A Module must be three years in length and must have a minimum duration of 40 teaching hours per academic year.

The Erasmus+ Programme Guide is the main source of information on Jean Monnet Modules, although more information on the application process is available from Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency.

For further information you can contact the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, or you can contact the European Commission.

Source: https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/opportunities/jean-monnet-modules-0_en (03.11.2020)

The French businessman, political and economic advisor Jean Monnet (1888-1979) was one of the most important personalities with regard to the European integration process. For example, Monnet played a crucial role in the amalgamation of the heavy industry in Western Europe, which emerged with the founding of the European Coal and Steal Community (ECSC) at its beginning between France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands formally established by the Treaty of Paris in 1951 and from which later on the European Union emerged. Another example for Jean Monnet’s striving for European unity is the "Action Committee for the United States of Europe", founded by him in 1954. It was one of the main forces leading to the creation of a European Single Market, the European Monetary Union or e.g. to the first direct election of the European Parliament in 1979.

Currently, Hebron University (HU) is the only Higher Education Institution (HEI) in all over Southern Palestine that offers a course on the EU.

The aim of the project is first of all to turn this course into a highly developed basic multidisciplinary module on EU issues that will be offered to a broader audience in order to encourage research and specialization in the EU among students of Political Science, but also to increase interest in the EU among students from other majors, who can choose it as an elective. Moreover, the further developed course will not only enhance knowledge on the EU relevant for graduates in their professional life, but it may also be attractive for a large number of governmental institutions and NGOs in civil society.

In addition to the academic university course itself the module project includes the implementation of several public academic conferences on the EU and Arab respectively on Palestinian issues to be held at HU. Moreover, several field trips to related institutions are conducted during it implementation phase.

Delivering knowledge on European integration history, the EU's institutions, its relations to the Arab world, its achievements, and its challenges in the 21st century, is only one objective. In addition, the course should further emphasize the important question of what Arab societies can learn from the Europeans' experience - above all from their common history of ideas and from the democratic values the EU was built on. Unfortunately, still there are many Palestinians, who reject democracy as something Western and evil. Ali Ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph of Islam, said: "People often hate things that they do not know or cannot understand." Therefore, in addition to the mere communication of mainly legal and technical information, one of the major objectives of the further developed course is to reduce misunderstandings about European history and about the EU's democratic foundations by breaking up fears by knowledge. In this sense the course will serve also to promote the peaceful dialogue of cultures in their search for common values.

In 2020, from more than 1400 eligible applications, Hebron University was the only HEI in Palestine that was selected for a Jean-Monnet-Project by the European Commission besides about 350 other beneficiaries from more than 60 countries.

Project Coordination/Contact

The coordinator of the project is Samir Suleiman, PhD. He is an assistant professor at the College and Law and Political Science at HU and the Coordinator of Erasmus+ and International Projects at the same college.

Contact e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

• Fact Sheets on the European Union

Here you can download a PDF file that contains more than thirty fact sheets (mostly Arabic) on the European Union (including also historical, geographic and cultural information).

• Timeline of the European integration process

To get an overview on the European integration process you can download its timeline at a glance as PDF (Arabic). 

•  Quiz on Europe

Home - Publications Office of the EU (europa.eu)

There are several instruments with regard to the European Union and its relations to the Arab world. One of them is the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) that was first outlined by the European Commission in 2003 and that concerning the Arab world is based on bilateral partnerships with all in all nine Arab countries, including Palestine. The main idea of the ENP is to establish an integration process with countries in the surrounding of the European Union without necessarily later on becoming members of the EU. 

Another regional approach is the Union for the Mediterranean (formed in 2008), a result of the so-called Barcelona Process since 1995. The Union for the Mediterranean is an intergovernmental organization (https://ufmsecretariat.org) based on a partnership of the 27 member states of the European Union and 15 Mediterranean partner countries from North Africa, West Asia and Southern Europe.

In addition, there exist cooperation agreements between the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council that includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Furthermore, the EU has signed cooperation agreements with Yemen and Iraq.

The relations of the European Union and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are based on the Interim Association Agreement on Trade and Cooperation from 1997. With regard to Palestine, it is worth mentioning that the European Union supports a two-state-solution including the establishment of a democratic State of Palestine living in peace with all of its neighbours within the borders of 1967 (Westbank and Gaza Strip including the possibility of mutual land exchanges until a final status agreement). With an annual amount of about 300 million Euro the European Union is the financial main supporter of the PA.

Critics of the European Union’s policy towards the Arab world emphasize that contrary to official statements, up to now it was de facto too much aimed at implementing security interests and economic aims instead of focusing on an earnest support for a real democratic transition in Arab states and in accordance with the values of the European Union.

Moreover, its critics say that up to now the EU’s approaches in reaching a just peace in the Palestinian conflict have been too hesitant, too halfhearted and inadequate in comparison with the possible role that the European Union could play as a mediator between the opposing parties. However, in this context it is worth mentioning that the European Union’s confederal structure concerning its Foreign Policy leads to the fact that every single member state finally has its own foreign policy, in other words there are governments that are more neutral concerning the Palestinian conflict, while others due to different reasons tend to support more or less the interests of one of the opposing parties.

The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

We would like to expressly emphasize that we have no influence on the design and on the content of any linked pages on this web site. We therefore hereby expressly distance ourselves from the content of all linked pages at this web site on the Jean Monnet Project at Hebron University. This declaration applies to all links built into this web site and its downloads and to all contents of the pages to which links or banners lead.