European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

EUROPEAN PROGRAMMES FROM SPAIN 115Spain, as a EU State, is an active member of all the programmespromoted by the European Commission in the field of education andteacher training. In general, Spain ranks amongst the first, and in someActions it comes out top both in number of participants and,consequently, in funds allocation, since it is the Commission´s policy tosend the remaining funds to the States with the highest demand oncefunds have been allocated according to the population of each country.The participation of Spanish citizens in European programmes ishighly satisfactory. with regards to Socrates the funds received from theEuropean Commission can only sponsor 51 % of all the projectapplications submitted.With regard to other programmes, the amount of interest is similar,and demand is always far above offer.There are other programmes which depend on the Commissionthat are also developed in educational institutions, such as:—European Youth Parliament.—European Young Customer Competition.—Sea and River Culture Youth Competition.—Euroescola.—Convivir es vivir, etc.European programmes contribute to the improvementof education and promote the necessary ethical valuesfor any society, while creating citizens´ awareness of beinga part of Europe.As it has been previously mentioned, students, teachers and educationalinstitutions constitute the fundamental terms of reference for qualityof education. As such, it is necessary to focus our attention on each ofthem and analyse the ways in which each of the Actions contained withinthe Socrates Programme directly or indirectly affects them.InstitutionsAction One of Comenius affects the running of schools moredirectly, by supporting the establishment of transnational partnershipsand developing any of the following three kinds of projects:—School Projects in collaboration with schools in other Europeancountries.