THE JEAN MONNET PROGRAMME AS A TOOL TO REINFORCE THE ROLE OF THE EU AS A REGIONAL AND GLOBAL ACTOR M. De Martino The Department of Comparative Politics Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia Miklukho-Maklaya str., 10a, Moscow, Russia, 117198 This article aims to analyse the Jean Monnet programme as a soft power instrument of the European Union to achieve its objectives in the international arena. <...> From this study, it has emerged that regions neighbouring the European Union have trends very different from other third countries that are also active participants in the Jean Monnet Programme. <...> Key words: European Union, soft power, Jean Monnet programme, Erasmus plus, Education policy. <...> INTRODUCTION Since 2014 the Erasmus plus programme is the core instrument that the European Union has adopted in the field of education and youth. <...> The EU through the Erasmus plus programme aims to achieve not only the objective of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET 2020), but also the broader objectives of smart, inclusive and sustainable growth of the Europe 2020 strategy [6. <...> Compared to the previous programmes in the field of education — Lifelong-learning programme (2007—2013) and Socrates II (2000—2006), the EU has reinforced also the international dimension of the programme brooding the possibilities of cooperation with neighbourhood countries and third countries of almost every region of the world. <...> This makes of the Erasmus plus programme a key tool of soft power for the EU. <...> The Erasmus plus programme gathered all the previous European programmes in the field of education and youth and it is composed of three main directions or “key activities”, as they are called in the EU documents, which are: mobility, cooperation for innovation and support for policy reforms. <...> Such programme aims at supporting high quality and excellence in teaching and research in the area of European Union studies in any country of the world [3. <...> P. 56]. 28 De Martino M. The Jean Monnet Programme as a Tool to Reinforce the Role of the EU. <...> This article aims at analysing the Jean Monnet programme as soft power tool of the European Union to strengthen its role a regional and global actor. <...> Such programme is a response of the European Commission to the request of academia, demanding support to update their curricula offering subjects on EU <...>