The wait is over. Young people from the European Union can now request one of the 35,000 passes available to discover Europe, mainly by train. DiscoverEU, an initiative of the Erasmus+ program, guarantees those selected a trip with a minimum duration of one day and a maximum of 30 days, to be carried out between March 1, 2023 and February 29, 2024.
Daniel Rosário, spokesman for the Portuguese representation of the European Commission in Portugal, explained to TSF that this program aims to allow 18-year-olds to “discover Europe through learning experiences”, having “the opportunity to get to know Europe in a sustainable way, on train trips”.
In this way, you will be able to get to know all the countries that are part of the European Union, but also the other six that are part of the Erasmus+ programme, and with a “very strong cultural component”, since this InterRail pass is accompanied by a discount that gives access to cultural visits, learning activities.
Discover EU is open to young residents of the European Union or one of the third countries associated with the Erasmus program, such as Iceland, Liechenstein, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia and Turkey.
To apply, young people must have been born between January 1 and December 31, 2004, and submit an application. “The application portal will be open until October 25. All you need to do is submit the application, answer half a dozen questions and then wait for the selection committee, based on the profile of the applications and the correct answer to those questions, make your selection, make your list and distribute the available passes.” revealed the spokesman for the representation in Portugal of the European Commission.
The DiscoverEU program appeared in 2018 and since then the demand has been increasing, showing that the initiative was highly desired by young Europeans.
“It was an initiative that fulfilled a great desire to meet, travel and share, because the demand has systematically exceeded the supply of available passes. To give an idea, in the first two years, in 2018 and 2019, 70 thousand passes, for 350 thousand young people who applied”, revealed Daniel Rosário.
Source: TSF
