EU Will Open Call for Allocating 35,000 Free Rail Passes for Youngsters on October
Youngsters over the age of 18 throughout Erasmus+ countries, Iceland, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Serbia, Norway, and Turkey, are eligible to apply for a free rail pass to explore Europe and its rich culture, with the call being open from October 11 to October 25 by the youth travel programme, DiscoverEU.
According to a press release by the European Commission, in order for applicants to win this travel pass, they will have to answer five quiz questions, and a subsidiary, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“For the second time this year, DiscoverEU will offer an enriching experience to 35,000 young people, enabling them to travel the continent, discover new cultures, build new friendships. Promoting cultural exchanges through sustainable travel could not be more relevant than it is today,” the Commissioner for Education, Research and Youth, Mariya Gabriel, said.
Those who have successfully passed the selection quiz and are born between January 1 and December 31, 2004, will be able to travel in Europe for up to 30 days, from March 1, 2023, until February 29, 2024.
Recipients will also continue benefiting from a discount card with more than 40,000 possibilities for discounts on public transport, accommodation, food, culture, sports, and other services throughout the EU.
They can also join DiscoverEU meet ups, which will be launched in the summer of 2022, with a one to three days cultural programme being available across all Erasmus+ countries.
Furthermore, this program is enabled due to the increased budget in the frame of the European Year of Youth, through which 70,000 travel passes will be allocated in 2022.
Earlier this year, DiscoverEU revealed it would provide 10,000 additional rail passes to people aged from 18 to 20 years old from the Erasmus+ countries, as well as several others. This takes the total number of tickets offered to youngsters for 2022 to 70,000.
“In the spirit of the Commission designating 2022 the European Year of Youth, DiscoverEU is back, bigger than ever, with new opportunities for young people to take a train, broaden their horizons, extend their learning, enrich their experiences and meet fellow Europeans while travelling by rail as of March 2022,” the Commissioner said last year regarding the program.
The program is especially beneficial for students, who can discover the EU and use discounts for different services and attractions while travelling green – an issue the European Union is really big on. The Union is urging people to use the train more, cut on travelling by car or airplane, due to high pollution of air.
