The European Commission is taking the Netherlands to the EU’s Court of Justice  for discriminating against students from other EU countries by not giving them discount travel cards.

Dutch students can get a special travel card entitling them to free transport at either weekends or during the week.

In a statement on Thursday, the commission said that under EU treaties ‘wherever EU students choose to study… they have the same rights to benefits as local students, unless EU law expressly excludes a benefit’.

Equal treatment

By failing to apply this principle of equal treatment to other students ‘all other EU citizens studying in the country, including Erasmus students, are therefore discriminated against’.

The Dutch government is planning to phase out the student travel card in its present form.

A spokesman for the education ministry told the Telegraaf the Netherlands is confident about the outcome of the court case. The Netherlands argues that the student travel card is included in the exceptions to equal treatment rules, he said.

Earlier stories
EU students face tougher rules to claim Dutch study financing
Growing numbers of foreign students head for Holland
The Netherlands benefits little from its foreign students