Students’ Rights Charter
From ESU’s Students’ Rights Charter to a European Students’ Rights Charter
In May 2024, the European Students’ Union (ESU), which represents around 20 million students through 43 National Unions of Students from 40 countries, adopted its Students’ Rights Charter as a shared student-led baseline for rights, participation, mobility and quality across the European Higher Education Area. The Charter brings together five connected pillars, social rights, academic rights, internationalisation and mobility, quality education and democratic participation and representation. It is intended as a practical advocacy tool for students and national unions, and as a reference point for institutions and public authorities.
Building a European framework with the Council of Europe
In March 2025, the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for Education (CDEDU) gave formal mandate to initiate work towards a Council of Europe’s Student Rights Charter. This follows support expressed by Ministers of Education at the Council of Europe Standing Conference in September 2023. This matters because while many countries have policies that touch on students’ rights, there is no single shared framework across Europe that consolidates rights and responsibilities in a way that is comparable and visible in practice. The Council of Europe’s initiative explicitly links student rights to democracy, equality, inclusion and meaningful participation in academic communities.
The Council of Europe has established a dedicated drafting group, co-led by the Council of Europe and ESU and bringing together student representatives, public authorities and key higher education stakeholders. The mandate and timeline were approved in 2025 with work planned through to 2027, alongside broader consultation with stakeholders.
A core principle of the process is student co-design. In practice, this includes structured exchanges with ESU’s membership, including discussions with ESU’s Board on how a European Charter should reflect students’ responsibilities in a way that strengthens rights, integrity and democratic culture, without turning responsibilities into a precondition for accessing rights.
Learning from national practice
Several National Unions of Students already work with national student rights charters or equivalent frameworks.
Romania’s student movement has developed a national Students’ Right Charter, “Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities”, and has shared its experience. Their Code frames non-discrimination as a core principle, calls for institutional strategies to combat discrimination developed together with student organisations and explicitly includes accessibility-related rights for students with disabilities. It also sets expectations around student representation, consultation and monitoring compliance, including an approach where student organisations can publish reports and institutions respond with improvement measures.
Spain’s national student rights framework, “University Student Statute”, provides another concrete example of how student rights can be anchored in national systems and applied to all universities. The Statute outlines common student rights and duties, including participation and representation, mobility provisions and a range of student support and service expectations. It also explicitly references students’ freedom of expression, assembly and association in the university environment, alongside protections linked to equality and non-discrimination.
To support implementation beyond adoption, ESU has established a task force on operationalising and mainstreaming the Students’ Rights Charter in ESU’s work. This includes supporting national unions in advocacy, connecting unions that have national charters with those that do not and promoting ESU’s Charter as a practical tool for student representation across Europe.
As the drafting process for the European Students’ Rights Charter advances, ESU will continue to bring member input into the work and to focus on turning the Charter into something students can use, not only cite.