DiscoverEU: Over 2,300 Romanian youngsters to travel throughout Europe by train

The European Commission has announced on Thursday the results of its last round of registrations for DiscoverEU: 60,950 young people selected in October 2021 – including 2,343 Romanians – will travel between March 2022 and February 2023.

DiscoverEU is an EU initiative giving 18-year-old EU citizens from all backgrounds the opportunity to travel around Europe, learn
from other cultures, build new friendships with fellow Europeans, and explore their European identity.

The selected candidates will travel alone or in groups of up to five people during March 2022-February 2023, for a period of 30 days. The expected budget for 2022 is € 26 million.

Under the Green Pact, participants will travel mainly by train, with some exceptions to allow those living on the islands to participate.Exceptionally for this round, those young people who were eligible under the two rounds in 2020, which were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, were also eligible to apply.

48.9% of the applications were made by youngsters with higher education / bachelor degree, and 28.8% graduating a form of school.

Organised for the first time in 2018, young people embraced the opportunity with enthusiasm. Nearly 685,000 young people applied for the 130,000 travel passes available over five application rounds in 2018, 2019 and 2021. The allocation of the travel passes was based on the share of Member States’ population compared to the overall population of the EU.