Erasmus Student Network named for the Dutch Renaissance humanist. By 1994 ESN had 60 sections in 14 countries. In 2004 the ESN network consisted of 170 sections in and outside Europe, from Scandinavia to Morocco. ESN has been growing with an average rate of around 12% since then. In 2005, ESN established its headquarters in Brussels and legally registered as a Belgian non-profit organisation. As of November 25, 2017, the Erasmus Student Network consists of 533 local associations ("sections") in 40 countries and has more than 13,500 volunteers across Europe. ESN works on three levels - local, national and international. It is only
EU Gateway Programme close to 1000 participating companies. 2008 marked a new era in EU Gateway history as the programme was launched in another country, South Korea. All in all, from 2008 – 2014 more than 1500 companies participated in 31 business missions to Japan and 15 business missions to South Korea respectively. Over the past decades the EU and Japan have developed strong economic ties and Japan, the world's third largest economy, is the EU's 7th largest trading partner. Trade between the two partners is expected to increase by a prospective EPA for which the negotiations were launched during the EU-Japan summit