DiscoverEU was created to bring young people closer to the diversity of Europe. The EU, therefore, raffles free Interrail tickets to 18-year-olds twice a year. With the pass, young people can discover the EU by train, e.g. 7 days within a month. Normally, the pass costs €251.
As part of the current application round, 35,000 travel passes will be awarded to 18-year-old EU citizens born between 1 July 2004 (inclusive) and 30 June 2005 (inclusive). The winners can then explore Europe by train between June 15, 2023 and September 30, 2024. In addition, young people now receive a discount card with which they receive price reductions during the trip. The application deadline is on March 29, 2023.
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Who Can Participate?
In order to apply at DiscoverEU, one must:
- Be born between July 1, 2004 (inclusive) and June 30, 2005 (inclusive).
- live in an EU member state or in a country associated with Erasmus+.
Schedule of the Current Application Round
The schedule of the current DiscoverEU round is as follows:
- Applications can be submitted via the European Youth Portal between 15 March at noon and 29 March 2022 at noon.
- All applicants will receive an email notification stating whether they have won a Travel Pass or been placed on the reserve list. You can also check the status of your application via the European Youth Portal.
- The winners can then request their travel pass by a certain deadline. There is a fixed and flexible options to choose from. However, 95% opt for the flexible option.
- With the Travel Pass, you can then travel between June 15, 2023, and September 30, 2024.
How Does the Application Process Work?
First, personal information is requested. However, applicants must also decide whether they prefer to apply alone or in a group of up to 5 people. Then there is a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 5 questions about the EU and EU initiatives.
The estimation question is more difficult. This time, the question is how many applicants in this round are still going to school or are graduating. With a little research, however, you can narrow down the result better. Tip: The DiscoverEU factsheets almost always have valuable information for you. Finally, you can provide some information that will help the EU further improve DiscoverEU.
How Does the Selection Process Work?
Each country is allocated a specific number of travel passes based on its share of the total EU population. A ranking is then created based on the answers to the five multiple-choice questions and the guess question. According to this ranking list, the travel passes are issued until the contingent of passes in a country is exhausted. For the last round of applications, for example, the distribution was as follows:
Cover Picture: © Christian Meyer-Hentschel