Free Association of Student Unions (fzs) & European Students' Union (ESU)
If you are interested in student politics beyond your Faculty Student Representation or stuv, you will quickly come across two names: the fzs (free association of student bodies) at federal level and the ESU (European Students' Union) at European level. Both are voluntary interest representation associations – not official state bodies – in which student representations come together in order to be louder together than they would be individually. The fzs brings together student bodies from Germany, the ESU brings together the national umbrella organisations from across Europe. Through the fzs's membership in the ESU, both levels are connected: what is discussed in Würzburg can thus – via several stages – be carried all the way to Berlin and Brussels.
How stuv gets involved
stuv is a member of the fzs. A delegation elected by the StuPa travels to the members' assemblies twice a year and participates in nationwide committees. stuv does not pay membership fees because there is no constituted student body in Bavaria. For Bavarian universities, there is also a solidarity fund that stuv can register with.
Our delegation, term of office 2025/26:
Der fzs is a registered, non-profit association in which student representations voluntarily come together to conduct politics at federal level. It represents around one million students at approximately 100 higher education institutions, which is roughly one third of all students in Germany – the rest are not members, for example because student bodies never joined or have since withdrawn. Topics include classic nationwide issues: BAföG, higher education funding, tuition fees, the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act or the Germany semester ticket. Bavaria has a special provision: there is no constituted student body here, which is why Bavarian representations are exempt from contributions, and the fzs even maintains a "Bavaria solidarity fund" in its budget to support them.
Concretely, the work of the fzs becomes apparent in the student accreditation pool: When a degree programme is accredited (i.e. assessed for quality), trained students sit at the table as reviewers. They are delegated via the pool-supporting organisations – the Federal Faculty Conferences, the State Student Representations and the fzs, which also handles administration. Because the fzs does not represent everyone, there are additional networking structures: The MeTaFa(Meta-Conference of Faculty Representations) is the cross-disciplinary exchange meeting of nationwide Faculty Conferences such as KIF (Computer Science), ZaPF (Physics) or KoMa (Mathematics). The Länderrat , founded in 2025, is in turn an autonomous body affiliated to the fzs, in which the State Student Representations (for Bavaria the BayStuRa) coordinate with each other and with the fzs in order to advance nationwide issues together.
The European Students' Union (ESU) is the umbrella organisation of national student representations in Europe – it brings together 43 associations from 40 countries and thus represents around 20 million students. Members include, amongst others, the fzs (Germany), the ÖH (Austria) and the VSS (Switzerland). Its seat is in Brussels; it was founded in 1982. The ESU represents student interests vis-à-vis the major European actors – the EU, the Council of Europe, UNESCO and above all the Bologna Follow-Up Group, which steers the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Through the ESU membership of the fzs, your local work in Würzburg is thus indirectly linked to European higher education policy.
On the topic of quality assurance, the ESU is one of the central players in Europe. It is a co-author of the ESG (Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area) – the reference document that every accreditation in Germany and Europe is oriented towards. The ESG was developed by the so-called E4 Group: ENQA (quality assurance agencies), EUA (higher education institutions), EURASHE (universities of applied sciences) and ESU (students). The fact that students negotiate on an equal footing in this quartet is quite unique. In addition, the ESU has been operating its own Quality Assurance Student Experts' Pool since 2009 – the European counterpart to the German accreditation pool, through which trained students are sent as peers in cross-border accreditation and evaluation procedures. Those who have entered Germany via the fzs pool can thus potentially also contribute at European level.
